Fourth Wing

A #1 New York Times bestseller • TV series in development at MGM Amazon Studios with Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society • Amazon Best Books of the Year, #4 • Apple Best Books of the Year 2023 • Barnes & Noble Best Fantasy Book of 2023 • NPR “Books We Love” 2023 • Audible Best Books of 2023 • Hudson Book of the Year • Google Play Best Books of 2023 • Indigo Best Books of 2023 • Waterstones Book of the Year finalist • Goodreads Choice Award Winner • Newsweek Staffers’ Favorite Books of 2023 • Paste Magazine’s Best Books of 2023 • TikTok Book Awards UK and Ireland Book of the Year (International) 2024

“Suspenseful, sexy, and with incredibly entertaining storytelling, the first in Yarros’ Empyrean series will delight fans of romantic, adventure-filled fantasy.” ―Booklist, starred review

“Fourth Wing will have your heart pounding from beginning to end... A fantasy like you’ve never read before.” ―#1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout

Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Yarros

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general―also known as her tough-as-talons mother―has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away…because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter―like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom’s protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Rebecca is a #1 New York Times, USA Today, Sunday Times, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of over fifteen novels, including FOURTH WING, and is always ready to bring on the emotions. She's also the recipient of the Colorado Romance Writer’s Award of Excellence in New Adult for Eyes Turned Skyward from her Flight and Glory series.

She loves military heroes and has been blissfully married to hers for twenty-one years. She’s the mother of six children and lives in Colorado with her family, their stubborn English bulldog, feisty chinchillas, and Maine Coon cat who rules them all. Having fostered then adopted their youngest daughter, Rebecca is passionate about helping children in the foster system through her nonprofit, One October.

Visit her website at www.RebeccaYarros.com for more!

"A fantasy like you've never read before." ―Jennifer L. Armentrout, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"Smart-ass. Bad-ass. Kick-ass. One helluva ride!" ―Tracy Wolff, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"Utterly addictive and completely unputdownable. I devoured every page and fell hopelessly, desperately in love with these characters and the incredible world Rebecca Yarros has so carefully, lovingly crafted. Hands down the best book hangover I've ever experienced. I can't wait for more!"―Helena Hunting, New York Times bestselling author

"An exhilarating dragon ride of a fantasy! Brutal, fast-paced, compelling, and simmering with romantic tension that left me on the edge of my seat. Fourth Wing is everything I want in a book and more. Phenomenal! Move this one to the top of your TBR."―Samantha Young, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

"Buckle up because with nonstop action, sizzling romance, and the BEST DRAGONS EVER, you will not be able to put down Fourth Wing until the last page is turned. It's a wild, sexy, roller coaster of a ride."―Mary E. Pearson, New York Times bestselling author

"Dragons and war, passion and power...Fourth Wing is dazzling. Rebecca Yarros has created a world as compelling as it is deadly, and I can't wait to see where she takes it next."―Nalini Singh, New York Times bestselling author

"This book should come with a warning label, because once you start it, you won't stop until you reach the final page. Forbidden romance that simmers off the page; relentless, heart-stopping action; and a delicious, morally gray hero--this is the book I've been waiting for!" ―Geneva Lee, New York Times bestselling author

"Fourth Wing is an unforgettable adventure from cover to cover. I cheered, laughed, grinned, and refused to put it down. This expertly crafted romantic fantasy is sure to launch the beginning of a brand-new insatiable fandom!"―Lexi Ryan, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"Kapow, what a story! In Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros gives you gutsy young heroines and sexy bad boys living in a world where no one--not even the mightiest dragon--is safe. This is some sharp, bold, and delicious storytelling!" ―Rachel Howzell Hall, New York Times bestselling author

"House of the Dragon meets Divergent in this utterly thrilling, unputdownable new fantasy! Fourth Wing is full of scintillating adventure, soaring dragon flight, and slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers romance. Climb on and enjoy the ride!"―Amalie Howard, USA Today bestselling author

Paula Hawkins’s psychological thriller, "The Girl on the Train," is a dark, twisting narrative about memory, manipulation, and the dangerous secrets hidden behind the closed doors of a seemingly idyllic London suburb. The story centers on Rachel Watson, a deeply depressed thirty-two-year-old woman spiraling into severe alcoholism following the agonizing collapse of her marriage. Unable to cope with her husband, Tom, leaving her for his mistress, Anna, Rachel’s life has entirely unraveled. She was fired from her public relations job due to her drinking but continues to take the same commuter train into London every morning and evening to maintain the illusion of employment for her pitying roommate. Along this route, the train frequently stops at a red signal overlooking a row of Victorian backyards. One of these houses is just a few doors down from her old home, where Tom and Anna now live with their infant daughter, Evie. However, Rachel fixes her daily gaze on a different house. She becomes fiercely obsessed with a young, seemingly perfect couple who lives there, projecting a fantasy of pure, idyllic romance onto them. She names them "Jess and Jason," imagining they have the blissful, uncomplicated life that was cruelly stolen from her.

For months, this daily glimpse into the lives of "Jess and Jason"—whose real names are Megan and Scott Hipwell—serves as Rachel's only source of comfort, a fleeting escape from her gin-soaked reality. But her carefully constructed illusion shatters one morning when Rachel looks out the train window and sees Megan embracing and kissing another man on her patio. Deeply triggered and feeling a vicarious sense of profound betrayal, Rachel intensely projects her own trauma of Tom's infidelity onto Megan’s actions. Just days later, Megan completely vanishes, and the story splashes across the local news. Rachel immediately realizes she might hold the key to a vital clue regarding Megan's secret lover. However, Rachel’s potential involvement is severely complicated by a horrifying reality: on the very night Megan went missing, Rachel had gone on a massive drinking binge and traveled to that exact suburban neighborhood. She woke up the next morning covered in dirt and bruises, with a bleeding head wound, and absolutely zero memory of what she did. This gaping black hole in her memory terrifies her, leaving her desperate to uncover what she witnessed—or what she might have accidentally done in her drunken state.

Driven by a distorted sense of duty to Scott and a desperate need to inject purpose into her empty life, Rachel inserts herself into the official police investigation. She approaches the authorities and eventually Scott Hipwell himself, telling him about the man she saw Megan kissing, who is soon identified as Megan's therapist, Kamal Abdic. Unsurprisingly, Rachel proves to be the ultimate unreliable narrator. The police quickly dismiss her as a vindictive, pathetic ex-wife who has a documented history of drunkenly harassing Tom and Anna. Even Scott, who initially leans on Rachel for emotional support and embraces her clues, becomes repelled by her apparent alcoholism and erratic, conflicting lies. Despite the humiliation and constant rejection, Rachel refuses to let the mystery go. She embarks on her own chaotic amateur investigation, determined to find out what happened to Megan and to clear her own conscience, all while struggling to stay sober long enough to piece together her fractured memories.

To deepen the suspense and unravel the complex web of lies, Hawkins masterfully fractures the narrative across three distinct, intertwining female perspectives. Alongside Rachel’s present-day investigation, the story frequently jumps back in time to reveal Megan's life in the months leading up to her tragic disappearance. Through Megan's eyes, the reader discovers that her marriage to Scott was far from the perfect fairytale Rachel had imagined from the train. Megan was suffocating under Scott's increasingly controlling, jealous nature and was deeply haunted by a traumatic past—specifically, the accidental death of her infant daughter years ago while she was living in the woods with a former lover. This unresolved grief and profound restlessness led her to seek therapy with Kamal Abdic, which eventually blurred into a physical affair. However, Megan’s chapters reveal a woman desperately searching for an escape from a life that felt like a cage, leading her into reckless choices that ultimately sealed her fate.

The third perspective belongs to Anna, Tom's new wife, providing a chilling look at Rachel from the outside. Anna's chapters paint Rachel as a terrifying, unpredictable stalker who constantly threatens the safety of her new family. Anna resents Rachel’s lingering presence in their lives and views her as a pathetic nuisance. Yet, underneath her smug exterior as the "winning" woman, Anna is deeply insecure. She is exhausted by the effort of managing Tom’s moods, bored by suburban motherhood, and constantly paranoid about losing the man she stole from someone else. When Anna discovers a secret burner phone hidden in Tom's gym bag, her carefully curated domestic bliss begins to crack. Through these alternating viewpoints, it becomes abundantly clear that every woman in the novel is keeping devastating secrets, and absolutely no one is telling the whole truth.

As the narrative accelerates toward its climax, Rachel’s amateur sleuthing and forced periods of sobriety begin to unlock the repressed, fragmented memories of her alcoholic blackouts. What she discovers completely upends her understanding of her entire adult life. For years, Tom had weaponized Rachel’s alcoholism against her through extreme, calculated gaslighting. When Rachel was drunk, Tom would become violent and abusive, smashing things and causing chaos, only to blame all the destruction and physical abuse on Rachel the next morning. Because she couldn't remember the nights before, she believed his lies and convinced herself she was a violent, out-of-control monster. This massive revelation shifts the entire landscape of the mystery. Rachel realizes that she is not the villain of her own story; she is a victim of a calculating, predatory man who has been manipulating her reality for years to cover his own tracks.

The truth finally crystallizes into horrifying clarity when Rachel fully recovers her memory of the night Megan vanished. Standing near the underpass, she remembers seeing Megan getting into a car, and the man driving wasn't Kamal Abdic or Scott Hipwell—it was Tom. The devastating reality is that Tom had been having a passionate, secret affair with Megan, who used to be his and Anna's nanny. When Megan revealed she was pregnant with his child and fiercely refused to get an abortion, Tom realized his comfortable, perfectly curated life with Anna was in serious jeopardy. To silence her and avoid another messy public divorce, he drove Megan to the woods and brutally murdered her, burying her body where it wouldn't easily be found. The man Rachel had been mourning and the man she had been fearing were one and the same.

Armed with this terrifying truth, Rachel rushes to her old house to warn Anna about the monster she is living with. Anna, having recently found the burner phone and uncovering Tom's lies herself, already suspects her husband's guilt but is completely paralyzed by fear and denial. When Tom arrives at the house and realizes both women know his secret, his charming facade drops entirely, and a violent confrontation erupts. Recognizing that Tom intends to kill her just as he killed Megan, Rachel fights back with everything she has. She flees into the backyard, but Tom catches her. In a final, desperate act of self-defense, Rachel stabs Tom in the neck with a corkscrew she had grabbed from the kitchen. In a chilling moment of solidarity, Anna arrives at the scene and, rather than helping her husband, helps Rachel cover up the nature of the struggle by deliberately twisting the corkscrew deeper into Tom’s neck, ensuring that he dies. When the police arrive, the two women, both victims of the same manipulative monster, silently corroborate each other's story of self-defense, finally freeing themselves from his abuse forever.