This Fourth Wing review gives all four Empyrean books five stars, and I’ve gone back through them more times than I’m comfortable admitting. Fourth Wing is still my favorite because the first read hits hardest. Iron Flame and Onyx Storm get bigger and stay great, and Onyx Storm is the most fun of the three novels. Threshing Day is a short companion of thirteen backstories, worth it if you aren’t ready to leave Basgiath. The one warning is the lore, which keeps moving. No spoilers anywhere.
The series at a glance: four books out, three novels plus the Threshing Day companion, with five novels planned and Book 4 still untitled. Romantasy with dragons, a brutal war college and an enemies to lovers romance. First person, almost entirely Violet. Spice sits at a 3 on every book. 1,908 hardcover pages across all four, per Goodreads. I read each one on Kindle first, then listened to the regular audiobook, then bought the GraphicAudio version. I just finished Threshing Day.
Most Fourth Wing reviews stop at book one. That made sense in 2023. It doesn’t anymore. So this one covers the whole Empyrean series so far, book by book, plus Threshing Day and what the audio versions are actually like. If you’ve already read everything and want the details back before Book 4, I wrote a full spoiler recap of the Empyrean series too. This isn’t that. Nothing in here will ruin anything.
Here’s the setup. Violet Sorrengail is twenty and spent her life preparing to be a scribe. Then her mother, the commanding general, orders her into the Riders Quadrant at Basgiath War College instead. Riders bond dragons. Cadets who can’t keep up don’t wash out. They die. Violet is small, breakable, and surrounded by people who would be happy to help that along, starting with Xaden Riorson, a wingleader with every reason to hate her family.
Here’s who this is for. If you want dragons, a fast plot and a romance that’s front and center, start today. If you want literary fantasy with careful prose, this isn’t that series. Go in knowing it’s violent too. Named characters die, war is the backdrop for most of the series, and Yarros doesn’t soften it.
Vibe Check: Is the Empyrean Series an Easy Read?
Yes. I’ve been through all three novels in three different formats, which tells you they aren’t a slog. They’re long books that move. The comparisons you’ll see everywhere are The Hunger Games and A Court of Thorns and Roses, and they’re fair. A deadly school with a body count, plus a romance that runs the whole thing. You pick up the world as you go.
On audio it’s even easier. I listen on runs, at the gym, in the car and doing chores, and these have been on repeat, especially right before each new book came out. The regular audiobook is solid. The GraphicAudio version is a full cast dramatized production with sound effects, and it’s the one I’d pick for a long run, the same reason I loved the Harry Potter full cast audiobooks. I don’t read and listen at the same time (I find it distracting), so for me it’s always Kindle first and audio on the reread. If you’re deciding whether that habit is worth paying for, here’s my take on whether Audible is worth it.
Is Fourth Wing Spicy?
Yes, moderately. I’d put every book in the series at a 3 out of 5, Threshing Day included. There are open door scenes in the novels, so this isn’t one to hand to a younger teen. But the romance never stops the plot for long. The dragons and the war are doing the driving, and the spice rides along.
Fourth Wing Review, Book One
Still my favorite of the four, because the first read hits hardest. One school year and one goal, survive Basgiath. Nothing later in the series can give you the first time again.
Fourth Wing is my favorite, and the reason is almost boring. It was the first time. The first walk into Basgiath, the first time the dragons actually show up, the first time you realize how many cadets aren’t going to make it to the end of the year. You only get that once. Rereads are great. They’re not that.
It’s also the tightest book in the series. One school year, one goal, and that goal is staying alive. Everything is new and the stakes are right in front of Violet every single day. The later books are bigger. This one is focused.
At 517 pages it’s long, and it doesn’t read long. If you’re testing whether the series is for you, this is the book that decides it.
Iron Flame, Book Two
Bigger in every direction. The world opens up past the school, the stakes keep climbing, and it feels different from Book 1 while being just as good.
Iron Flame is where the series stops being a school story. The world opens up well past Basgiath’s walls. The question stops being whether Violet survives the year and becomes what the whole continent is going to do about what she knows. That’s a different feel from Fourth Wing. It’s just as good.
It’s also the longest book in the series at 623 pages. The tradeoff for a bigger world is more of it to get through, and it’s still a five for me. If you finished Fourth Wing and wanted to know more about everything outside the war college, this is the book that answers you.
Onyx Storm, Book Three
The most fun of the three novels. The biggest scale and the most happening, with an ending that leaves you hanging and no Book 4 date yet. Fourth Wing is still the favorite.
Onyx Storm is the most fun of the three novels. The scale is the biggest it’s been, more is happening on every page, and the plot never sits still long enough to get comfortable. Fourth Wing is still my favorite. This is the one that moves the fastest.
Fair warning about the ending. It wrecked me. And there’s no Book 4 release date yet. As of today the fourth novel has no title and no date, and the series is planned for five books, which I covered (with sources) in the Fourth Wing Book 4 recap. If cliffhangers with no end in sight make you miserable, maybe hold off until Book 4 is close. I didn’t, and I’m fine. Mostly.
Threshing Day, the Companion
Thirteen riders on the day they bonded their dragons. Short and worth it if you aren’t ready to leave Basgiath. Sloane’s story, and her dragon, is the best thing in it.
Threshing Day came out on September 29, 2026, and it isn’t Book 4. It’s thirteen short stories, each one a different rider on the day they bonded their dragon. At 224 pages it’s the shortest thing in the series by a mile. The publisher says it’s best read after Onyx Storm, and I agree. It works because you already know where everyone ends up.
The story that stuck with me is Sloane’s. I won’t say anything about it except that her dragon is the best moment in the whole collection. That’s the thing Threshing Day does that the novels can’t. It slows down and gives the side characters, and their dragons, a scene that’s entirely theirs.
Is it essential? No. Is it worth it? If you finished Onyx Storm and felt a little lost without these people, yes. I read it on Kindle and wasn’t ready to leave. So now I’m back through the GraphicAudio versions of the other three, just to stay in the world longer.
My One Gripe Is the Lore
Five stars across the board, and I still have a gripe. The rules of this world don’t hold still. How wards, runes, signets and the magic around them work shows up in throwaway lines, gets corrected a book later, then gets bent again a book after that. If you’re the kind of reader who builds a mental rulebook for a magic system, the Empyrean series will frustrate you.
My advice is to stop trying. Treat the lore as whatever the current scene needs it to be and enjoy the ride. That’s how the books want to be read. (It’s also why my recap has an entire section just explaining the lore, because I needed it too.)
Final Thoughts
The Empyrean series is the one I keep coming back to, and the rereads prove it. If you want dragons, a romance that runs the show and a plot that never stops moving, read all four. If you need airtight lore or literary prose, skip it and don’t let anyone guilt you.
Three novels, one companion and 1,908 pages is a real commitment, and it’s worth every one. Book 4 has no date, so you have time. Go read Fourth Wing tonight.
