Book Loving Tree Hugger"

Hi guys!

I know it’s been a long time since there’s been news about The Wicked Powers. I’ve actually been sitting on information for a long time because I was not allowed to talk about it. It was making me pull out all my hair, so I am super glad to be able to share the following announcement with you: The Wicked Powers is scheduled for publication, and will be published by Walker Books in the UK and Random House in the US.

There’s a bunch more about this announcement, including the announcement of a brand-new YA romantasy series I’ll be doing called In Fire Foretold. That will be published by Pan Macmillan in the UK (same people who published Sword Catcher) and by Random House in the US.

I know there will be a lot of questions about what my schedule is, why things are coming out when they are, whether I have anything coming out next year (Yes, The Ragpicker King, the sequel to Sword Catcher, and also for those who participated in the Kickstarter, those four books) and the overall future of everything Shadowhunter-related. So I will be doing followup announcements to address all that stuff, but first, here are both press release from my publishers in the US and then in the UK with all the info!

GLOBALLY BESTSELLING FANTASY PHENOMENON CASSANDRA CLARE TO PUBLISH  FINAL TRILOGY IN THE ‘SHADOWHUNTER CHRONICLES’  AND NEW DUOLOGY WITH ALFRED A. KNOPF BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS  First book in THE WICKED POWERS to release in Spring 2026

(New York, NY, April 5, 2024)—Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, will publish five new books from #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Clare, whose novels have sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, been translated into 43 languages, and published in more than 60 countries. The new publications will begin in Spring 2026 with the first book in THE WICKED POWERS trilogy, the sixth and final series in Clare’s 23-book, young adult fantasy franchise The Shadowhunter Chronicles. Also slated for publication with Knopf is a brand-new YA romantasy duology, IN FIRE FORETOLD. The news was announced today by Melanie Nolan, VP and Publisher, Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, who acquired North American rights from Suzie Townsend and Joanna Volpe of New Leaf Literary & Media in a highly competitive auction. Michelle Frey, Senior Executive Editor, Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, will edit both series. 

Cassandra Clare mesmerized readers across the globe with the publication of City of Bones (2007), the first book in the Mortal Instruments series, and was quickly dubbed the “New Queen of Fantasy” by the Wall Street Journal. The Mortal Instruments became the basis for the far-reaching Shadowhunter Chronicles, an intricately drawn world that has seen global success and has been adapted into both a feature film and television show. The books follow the Shadowhunters, a secretive race of humans born with angel blood, whose mission is to eliminate the demons that plague the Earth. Knopf’s first publishing collaboration with Clare, THE WICKED POWERS (Spring 2026), will follow Kit Herondale, Ty Blackthorn, and Drusilla Blackthorn from The Dark Artifices series as they are drawn into the final massive conflict between the demons and the angels. 

IN FIRE FORETOLD is a pulse-pounding YA romantasy duology set in a new world with entirely new characters. The story centers a young woman who must learn to control her dangerous magical abilities in order to save her kingdom, all while finding herself torn between two brothers—the kingdom's princes, born to a cursed royal bloodline. The publication date for IN FIRE FORETOLD, as well as news of additional books to come from Cassandra Clare and Knopf, will be announced. 

Says Cassandra Clare: "I am delighted to have Knopf and Penguin Random House as my publishers for this last trilogy in the Shadowhunters world. They truly understand what it means—both for the story and for my readers—to wrap up such an epic tale that has been told over so many years. I'm also excited to be launching my next YA series — a kickass portal fantasy that contains a ton of things I love, from a bold and reckless heroine to a magical wasteland filled with terrifying monsters that must be fought, to a love triangle with two very unusual cursed princes. I can't wait for us to bring these stories to the world."

Says Michelle Frey: “Cassandra Clare is a beloved author whose work has a massive following for good reason: she sucks you into a fully imagined world and never lets go until the last, satisfying page. I have long admired Cassie and am thrilled to be working with her on both the delectable final trilogy in the Shadowhunter Chronicles and the heart-stopping new love triangle she has dreamed up with IN FIRE FORETOLD.”

Random House Children’s Books (rhcbooks.com) is the world’s largest English-language children’s trade book publisher. Creating books for toddlers through young adult readers, in all formats from board books to activity books to picture books, novels, and nonfiction, the imprints of Random House Children’s Books bring together award-winning authors and illustrators, world-famous franchise characters, and multimillion-copy series. Random House Children’s Books is a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

UK/AUS/NZ:

Walker Books will publish three new books, the final trilogy in Shadowhunter Chronicles, the first coming in Spring 2026.

Separately, First Ink will publish a brand new YA duology, introducing readers to a fantastical new world of Clare’s creation, filled with enticing new characters and heart-racing action. With sales figures for Cassandra’s novels exceeding 40 million copies worldwide, translated into 43 languages and published in more than 60 countries, these are exciting and major acquisitions for both publishing houses.

Walker will launch THE WICKED POWERS in Spring 2026 with the first book in the trilogy, The Last King of Faerie. THE WICKED POWERS is the final instalment of Clare’s 23-book, young adult fantasy series, Shadowhunter Chronicles.

THE WICKED POWERS (Spring 2026), will follow Kit Herondale, Ty Blackthorn, and Drusilla Blackthorn from The Dark Artifices series as they are drawn into the final massive conflict between the demons and the angels. The novel marks the beginning of the final trilogy in Clare’s globally beloved series.

Cassandra Clare Says about THE WICKED POWERS: "I’m thrilled to be taking this momentous step in the Shadowhunter chronicles with Walker! They published City of Bones in 2007 and now we will be bringing this huge epic to a close together. With their creativity and dedication, I know they’ll do it justice."

Denise Johnstone Burt says: “We at Walker are immensely proud to have been Cassie’s publishers from the very beginning, when City of Bones launched the Shadowhunters into the world. Since then Cassie has become one of the most beloved writers in YA fantasy all over the world, and with very good reason. Her world-building and character portrayal are absolutely second to none and her books never fail to mesmerise her fans. I am delighted that we will be returning to the world of Shadowhunters once again in THE WICKED POWERS, and know Cassie will bring the Chronicles to a conclusion with her trademark brilliance and consummate style.”

First Ink will publish IN FIRE FORETOLD, a pulse-pounding YA romantasy duology set to delight all fans of Cassie Clare. UK and Commonwealth rights were acquired by Samantha Smith, Publisher of First Ink and Macmillan Children’s Books’ Fiction, Non Fiction and Picture Book List, from Danny Baror and Heather Baror-Shapiro at Baror International.  The duology will be a super lead title for First Ink and will launch with a significant multi-channel communications campaign including national media, influencer and fan events [HBS1] and multimedia advertising.

IN FIRE FORETOLD sees the launch of a brand new world and set of entirely new characters for Clare. The story centres on a young woman who must learn to control her dangerous magical abilities in order to save her kingdom, all while finding herself torn between two brothers - the kingdom's princes - born to a cursed royal bloodline.

Cassandra Clare says about IN FIRE FORETOLD: “I’m so excited to be publishing IN FIRE FORETOLD with First Ink. This story contains so many things I love- it’s a portal fantasy that swings between worlds, where the gritty LA streets exist alongside a dangerous magical world filled with deadly monsters - and a uniquely tough heroine who’s ready to do battle on all sides. Not to mention some gorgeous princes with shady pasts. I know how much Pan Macmillan loves fantasy and how well they publish it so I’m thrilled for this partnership."

Samantha Smith, Publisher at First Ink, says: “Cassandra Clare is a phenomenon author who has delighted and surprised her millions of readers across the world for decades now. As a huge fan of both her YA Mortal Instruments series and latest adult fantasy Sword Catcher, I cannot wait for her to turn her formidable pen to a new, heart-stopping series in In the Fire Foretold and could not be more excited to welcome her onto the First Ink list”

Belinda Ioni Rasmussen, Managing Director at Macmillan Children’s Books, says: “ Welcoming Cassandra Clare to First Ink with a brand new fantasy world is very exciting - both for us and her fans.  Her storytelling is second to none and her new duology on our list is the perfect partner series to her brilliant publishing that sits on our Tor list at Pan Macmillan.”

About Walker Books

Home to books for all ages, Walker Books publishes many award-winning authors, illustrators, and literary franchisesincluding Anthony Horowitz, Angie Thomas, Cassandra Clare, Lucy Cousins, Anthony Browne, Patrick Ness, Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney and Anita Jeram, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury, and Where’s Wally? by Martin Handford. Walker Books is part of the vibrant international Walker Books Group that includes Walker Books Australia; Candlewick Press and Walker Books US in America and Walker Productions.

About Pan Macmillan

*puts dates in calendar*

Hi Cassie, I have a couple of questions and I hope you do have time to answer them. 1. Is Ghosts of the Shadow Market replacing the ten The Last Hours short stories? Please say no, I’m so much looking forward to TLH/the stories! 

Hello! No, GoTSM is not replacing those short stories. Those stories are only about the Last Hours characters, where there are only two short stories in GoTSM about the TLH characters — one about Matthew Fairchild, and one about Anna Lightwood. Plus, the free TLH short stories were always meant to be very short vignettes, where the GoTSM stories are 10,000+ word novellas. Also, the GoTSM short stories all feature Jem. They’re not related at all!

2. Didn’t you say that Queen of Air and Darkness was supposed to be released in FALL 2018? December 2018 is so far away! I’m sad it’s over a year until the new book although I’m going to (impatiently) wait for it. 

I know it seems like a long time! When I started serious work on Queen, it was already summer 2017 and the book has to be finished by early 2018 to ensure publication in 2018 at all (that’s not a lot of time to write and edit a 220,000 word book). I was told publication would be in Fall, and then recently I was told the specific date – Dec 4. Now to be fair to the publishing industrial complex, this is Fall as far as they are concerned. There are only two publishing seasons, spring and fall. Spring is the first half of the year, fall the second half. December is a fall publication because there is no winter. So there is no contradiction — just a later pub date than we’d all probably like, but a date that I strongly suspect was as soon as they could possibly get it. (It is also worth noting that Queen was originally supposed to be published in 2019. Not 2018.)

3. What happened to all the bonus stories that were going to be in the anniversary edition? I love your books and thanks for answering your fan questions <3 mrswilliamherondale

I really don’t know what happened there? I have seen a few people say they thought there were going to be bonus stories — i.e. old extras I’ve written that appeared in special editions of past books  — included in the anniversary edition. However, while I remember discussing that with my publisher, they came down very firmly on the side of not doing that because the bonus content would have contained enormous spoilers for later books (since I think there’s only been one extra scene that actually took place during CoB: Jace’s POV on the greenhouse scene) and they had to assume that even though this is a special edition, it would be some people’s first introduction to City of Bones. 

That is why The Clave Files, which is the piece that is included and was written specifically for the Anniversary Edition, is set specifically between Bones and Ashes, so nothing is spoiled for new readers. S&S overall thought people would be happier to get new background on the book characters (like their birthdays) than see stories that had already been published and are available to read on my website. They might have been wrong! I can’t say, but I do love the Files, and I think the art and illustrations in the Anniversary Edition are gorgeous, so I hope people aren’t disappointed and I’m sorry if there was misinformation out there.

cordeliafairchild said:My tenth anniversary edition of city of bones arrived and it is so beautiful! I especially love the character portraits and the illustrations throughout the book that take up an entire page. I remember hearing somewhere that we would find out Jace’s real birthday from this book, the calves files have it to be in the spring/summer, when I thought it was actually in the winter? Thanks!!

Yesterday I went to the Sarah J. Maas signing in Pennsylvania. I wasn’t able to have anything signed by her, but I still got to see and hear her speak !!!! eeekkk.

So here are some things that she mentioned that I think were worth mentioning

Throne of Glass has had multiple ending over the years

A Court Of Thons And Roses’ ending hasn’t changed for the most part 

If the characters were food Cassian would be Nachos and Azriel would be dark chocolate and wine

Yrene has a major POV in Tower of Dawn

Tower of Dawn is basically ToG 6

YOU NEED TO READ THAT IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND TOG7

Tower of Dawn is basically the same length as EoS and QoS

Her advice for perspective authors:

Dry shampoo

She loves mac & cheese

Sometimes baked (mother in law makes it the best) other times with white chetter

Mac & Cheese is basiacally a food group in her house

If she had to choose a Court it wouldn’t be Summer cause she doesn’t like outdoors so maybe the Autumn Court

Cause it’s her favorites season

Though she did make note of the people

Miryam and Drakon may be one of the “short stories

The short stories expand on the world

The first short story is set after ACOWAR but some of them might be set before 😉

She knows what the first two are about

And for the others as well as the length of them, “We’ll see what happens”

When Sarah sat down to write the Throne of Glass novella about Chaol this past fall, she wound up writing something a bit longer… So long, in fact, that the project-formerly-known-as-a-novella is now a full-length novel! Sarah will be sharing more about her inspiration for this story and how it went from a novella into another major installment in the TOG saga in an upcoming issue of her newsletter [subscribe here].

Look for a title reveal soon! Chaol’s book will publish on September 5, 2017 along with the US paperback edition of Empire of Storms.

Due to some ongoing health issues for Sarah these past months, the final book in the Throne of Glass series and The World of Throne of Glass will now both publish on May 1, 2018.

Retailer websites will be updated shortly with this information.