When Rebecca Yarros released Fourth Wing in May 2023, she may not have realized that she had written the next pop culture phenomenon and the most explosively popular book of the year.

But before taking over the online reading community, Yarros had been writing. A lot.

Self-described as a “hopeless romantic”, Yarros had spent a decade publishing romance books before Fourth Wing gave her unprecedented popularity. As a military wife of over 20 years, she found solace in romance books during her husband’s deployment, which nurtured her writing niche.