Onyx Storm

by Rebecca Yarros ★★★★★

Like with previous reviews of books in a series, I will start with a warning:

If you have not yet read Fourth Wing or Iron Flame, STOP READING THIS NOW! 

My review below is of the third book in The Empyrean series, Onyx Storm, which will contain major spoilers for the previous books in the series, but not for Onyx Storm. And if you're new to this series and curious about what's sparking all of that Fourth Wing hype, my review of that first book in the series is here.

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Many readers' most anticipated book of 2025 landed in January with a dragon-sized splash, selling more than 2.7 million copies in its first week to make it the fastest selling adult novel in the last 20 years. Congratulations to Rebecca Yarros for creating a series and phenomenon the likes of which we haven't seen since Harry Potter. But did Book 3 in The Empyrean series live up to the hype?

Like with Iron Flame, Onyx Storm picks up immediately where the previous book in the series ended. The reader is thrust into the narrative, and I found myself rereading portions of Iron Flame to remember some of the details. To summarize briefly, key things to know/remember:

• The venin were once again defeated and Basgiath War College was saved, but winning the battle at the end of Iron Flame came at a cost. Violet's mother Lilith gave her life to restore the wards at Basgiath, aided by Sloane who siphoned Lilith's power.

• Xaden was able to defeat a venin Sage, but only by channeling magic from the earth, which has started the irrevocable process of him turning into a venin.

• Sawyer survived the battle, but lost his leg in the fight.

• The venin attack was aided by Jack Barlowe, who was revealed to be a venin. He was captured and is being held captive in the dungeons of Basgiath.

• Lastly, Andarna revealed that she is a special seventh breed of dragon, a color-shifter which comes to be known as an "irid."

All clear? Perfect, you're ready for Onyx Storm.

As the remaining venin are run out of the area or killed, classes resume at Basgiath, and with a full-scale war looming, the cadets continue their training with an added urgency. Xaden is able to mask the red eyes that mark him as having channeled, and so only Violet and a small group of trusted friends know of his condition and looming fate. But he's at constant war with himself: the pull to channel again is like a drug, and it takes all of his concentration to suppress those urges. Yarros uses that as the latest device to create sexual tension between Violet and Xaden, who mutually and steadfastly refuse to be intimate for fear it will cause Xaden to lose control and "turn". The result is a lot of sexual frustration, paired with myriad declarations of love and each exalting in the knowledge that the other is "mine", but even less sex this time around. Fear not, spice fans, Onyx Storm still contains the phrase "He slips a hand down my stomach and lightly strokes my hypersensitive clit," but the spiciness is more focused on words than actions.

While things are mostly lovey-dovey, Violet and Xaden can't help but fall into more of their habitual bickering. Yarros at least has the self-awareness to mock the pair's penchant for squabbling:

"'But he's right, you and Riorson bicker like you've been married fifty years and neither of you wants to do the dishes.'

'That's not true,' I (Violet) protest as Sawyer nods.

'Agreed,' Ridoc says. 'And it's always the same fight.' He lifts his hand to his chest. 'I'll trust you if you stop keeping secrets!' He drops the hand and scowls. 'It's my secretive nature that attracted you, and why can't you just stay out of harms way for five fucking minutes?'"

Nailed it, Ridoc!

With the spice held at bay, Yarros focuses her plot on Violet's quest to find a cure for Xaden and strengthen the wards at Tyrrendor, which require her to locate the missing irids (Andarna's seventh breed of dragon). Both tasks involve heavy research from the Archives (and beyond) and eventually lead to the formation of a "Quest Squad" to journey into uncharted lands. Previously unmentioned islands south of The Continent become a focus for a major portion of the novel and deliver some of the book's more engrossing scenes.

Where Iron Flame took the foundation of Fourth Wing and possibly even improved on it, Onyx Storm didn't quite match the same level of excellence for me, but that's only by comparison to the high bar that was already set. It's hard to continue to keep things fresh while also satisfying hordes of adoring fans of the series. The cast of characters has grown large, and it can at times be difficult for the reader to keep everyone straight. The larger cast also means some characters get almost no development in this novel—for example, we barely see Imogen this time around. Compound that challenge of keeping the cast straight with the need to remember all of the dragons/gryphons, and things can get a tad overwhelming. There's no forgetting Tairn or Sgaeyl, but do you remember which rider is bonded to a dragon named Cuir? Some of you Empyrean nerds are saying, "Um, it's obviously Bodhi," but I'm sure there are plenty of you who forgot (or never knew) that detail. Yarros does include a handy chart at the start of the novel that matches several riders to their dragon/gryphon as well as their signet(s), but even that is far from comprehensive.

Onyx Storm can feel overwhelming when the reader is thrust into the aftermath of Iron Flame at the start, but just like Iron Flame, once you recover your bearings and immerse yourself in the world the novel eventually finds its footing. The book peaks in the middle with the Quest Squad sections, and it still manages to finish strong. Yarros has gotten even more adept at writing action scenes, and many play out in Onyx Storm with a cinematic grandeur that I look forward to seeing brought to life in the in-the-works Amazon television series. There are components that felt repetitive—Violet and Xaden's self-imposed moratorium on sex, an administrator at the school actively working to undermine them, a climactic battle scene to close out the book—and so for the first time in the series it started to feel a tad redundant. Is there a major cliffhanger at the end of this book? You know there is! However, there are also hundreds of pages that take things in new directions and plenty of surprises, and those ultimately balance out some of the repetitiveness.

I can't imagine the pressure that Yarros was under to deliver something spectacular after the success of Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, and she still managed to compose a novel that I think will leave all but the most curmudgeonly of readers satisfied. It might not be quite as good as its predecessors, but I also think that I'll appreciate this book more when Yarros pays off some of the foundation she spent time to lay in Onyx Storm. The phenomenon continues, and now we all wait for Book 4.