A Court of Splintered Harmony: What You Are Actually Buying On 27 October
There is a new ACOTAR book on 27 October. The first in five years. Every bookish account you follow is going to tell you that this week.
Here is the part almost nobody is leading with: it is 352 pages.
For Sarah J. Maas, that is tiny. A Court of Silver Flames ran to about 768. A Court of Wings and Ruin was around 720. The new one is less than half of either.
Here is the truth: you are buying the first third of a story that does not finish until 12 January, in a book two and a half times longer.
The Reader’s Truth: “A book being short is not a problem. A book being short while priced like a full one, eleven weeks before the rest of it arrives, is something you should know before you preorder.”
The two books
| On sale | Pages | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Court of Splintered Harmony (book 6) | 27 October 2026 | 352 | $32.00 / £25.00 |
| A Court of Forgotten Melody (book 7) | 12 January 2027 | 896 | $38.00 |
Both from Bloomsbury. Eleven weeks apart. Seventy dollars for the pair at list price.
In the trade listings at several US retailers, the books carry subtitles that the covers do not: book 6 is “The Valkyrie Cycle, Movement I” and book 7 is “The Valkyrie Cycle, Movements II & III”. Goodreads and the UK listings show the plain titles only. But the subtitle tells you exactly what the page counts already suggested.
Maas said it herself on the Call Her Daddy podcast in March, when she announced the dates: “It’s meant to be read as one massive, massive story.”
She also said this about how it came out of her: “I like to do parts: part one, part two, part three.”
So this is not a cliffhanger that happened by accident. It is a structural decision, made on purpose, announced in advance. Which is better than the alternative — but it still means that what arrives on 27 October is a movement, not a symphony.
What the blurb actually says
Bloomsbury’s official synopsis for book 6, in the parts that carry real information:
Koschei the Deathless is stirring. He has been bound to a mountain lake for millennia, and the threat of his return is spreading across the Fae territories, drawing allies who want the human lands back. The Night Court will not stand by. But Prythian is still piecing itself together after the Hybern War, and uniting it is getting harder.
And then the line that matters most:
“those who rule and protect the Night Court are reeling from recent betrayals and revealed truths. The rifts dividing them seem insurmountable.”
Book 7’s blurb picks up the same thread: alliances crumbling, diplomacy failing, the Inner Circle scattering to find whatever advantage they can. “Bonds will be tested. Power will shift. And old enemies will emerge from nightmares of the past.”
If you have been waiting since Silver Flames for the Inner Circle to be properly fractured rather than briefly annoyed with each other, that is what both blurbs are promising.
What the blurb does not say
Whose book it is.
Maas has not announced the point-of-view character for either volume, and she declined to reveal it when asked. Every confident post you see naming Elain or Gwyn is a guess — a reasonable one, given where Silver Flames left things, but a guess.
We are not going to pretend otherwise. When Bloomsbury says, we will update this.
Should you preorder?
If you are caught up and you want it on release day: yes, obviously. Nothing here is a reason not to read it.
If you are the kind of reader who hates waiting: consider preordering both and reading them together in January. Eleven weeks is not long in the abstract and very long when a book ends mid-story. You already know how A Court of Mist and Fury ended and how that year felt.
If you are deciding whether to spend $32 right now: know that you are paying full hardback price for 352 pages, and that the 896-page half costs $38. The pricing is not proportional to the length. That may be entirely fine with you — it is a first edition of a book you have waited five years for. But it should be a decision, not a surprise.
If you have not read ACOTAR at all: do not start here. Start at the beginning — we have the reading order, including the two books people argue about skipping.
One thing we are not going to do
We have not read it. Nobody outside Bloomsbury has.
So this is not a review and it is not a prediction. It is the publication facts, the official blurb, and the arithmetic — which is the part that changes what you do this month.
The short version
- A Court of Splintered Harmony — 27 October 2026, Bloomsbury, 352 pages, $32.00 / £25.00
- A Court of Forgotten Melody — 12 January 2027, Bloomsbury, 896 pages, $38.00
- US trade listings subtitle them “The Valkyrie Cycle,” Movement I and Movements II & III
- Maas, announcing the dates: “It’s meant to be read as one massive, massive story”
- The antagonist is Koschei the Deathless; the Night Court is fractured after the Hybern War
- The point-of-view character has not been announced for either book
- Eleven weeks between them. Seventy dollars for both at list price
Are you reading book 6 in October, or waiting until January and doing both at once? I think the second is the saner choice and I already know I am not going to manage it.
Sources: A Court of Splintered Harmony at Bookshop.org · A Court of Splintered Harmony at Waterstones · A Court of Forgotten Melody at Bookshop.org · Sarah J. Maas announces the dates — TODAY · Maas on the structure of the two books — NBC News
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