Indigo says Maas launch tops Yarros release by 49 per cent
The Globe and Mail reported 12,500 customers partied across 89 Indigo stores for the midnight release of A Court of Splintered Harmony
Nearly 200 bookstores across Canada hosted parties Monday night ahead of the midnight release of Sarah J. Maas's A Court of Splintered Harmony: The Valkyrie Cycle, Movement I, the outlet reported. Indigo said the event marked the biggest midnight launch in the chain's history, with 12,500 customers dressing up and partying across 89 stores, and that the title's first-day retail sales surpassed Rebecca Yarros's Onyx Storm by 49 per cent, making it Indigo's biggest first day for a book's retail sales in the past decade, according to the outlet.
Bloomsbury, Maas's publisher, said she has sold more than 100 million books, the outlet reported. While 2021's A Court of Silver Flames had an initial print run of 500,000, A Court of Splintered Harmony's print run is four million, according to the report. Raincoast Books, which distributes the title in Canada for Bloomsbury, worked with independent bookstores to prepare for the parties, providing kits with suggested activities and swag, the outlet reported.
According to BookNet Canada's SalesData service, which tracks weekly point-of-sale data for English print trade books from more than 2,000 retail outlets across the country, romantasy sales grew between 594 per cent and 2,427 per cent between 2021 and 2025, depending on how titles are categorized, the outlet reported.
A 500,000-copy first print run growing to four million between two books in the same series is the number to sit with here, authors — that is what reader demand compounding over time looks like. Romantasy didn't get handed this moment; it built a fandom that shows up at midnight in costume. If you write in this space, the lesson isn't "write faster," it's "build the community now" — the launch parties are proof the readers were already there waiting to be organized, not created overnight. Watch where BookNet Canada's sales figures land next quarter — that range is wide enough to tell you the category is still being measured, not just celebrated.
From the Coral Wire edition of Thu, Oct 29 2026 · Coral Index 46/100 (Mixed signals)
Coverage — 3 outlets
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- Romantasy Isn't Dead — But It's Changing. Here's Where Romance Readers Are Going in 2026 | SwoonScript Blogswoonscript.com
- Romantasy books have fans packing bookstores to party like it’s 2007 - The Globe and Mailtheglobeandmail.com
- How 831 Stories is monetizing romance readers' fandom | Fortunefortune.com