Snow Days and Midnight Releases

My calendar is always filled with book release dates. For series I love, I will add release dates months or sometimes even years in advance. This one in particular has been on my calendar for almost a year.

Onyx Storm is the third book in the Empyrean series (following Fourth Wing and Iron Flame). This is a series about dragon riders and their fight against a collection of dark magic wielders. A majority of the story takes place at a war college where the main characters we follow are all students learning to be riders. I don’t want to spoil too much of the story but there is love, friendship, found family, and tons of fantasy and magic. I fell in love with the first book instantly so it’s safe to say I’ve been counting down the days until this release.

A few weeks ago, I was trying to determine how I was going to get the copy of this book that I wanted and still be on time for my 9:45 class. A few of the bookstores in Tallahassee were planning midnight release parties but I wasn’t planning on attending because Tuesday is my longest class day, and I didn’t want to be distracted by tiredness.

Thankfully the universe gave me the perfect scenario: a winter storm. In the days leading up to the release, Florida was starting to brace for a historic winter storm and I knew this meant that the university was probably going to close. I just had to be patient and wait for the email. Around 1:30 Monday afternoon, my prayers were answered. FSU would be closing on Tuesday and Wednesday!

I immediately called Barnes and Noble to get the info about the midnight release because now my schedule was completely open. There weren’t any more spots to preregister, but they told me to be there around 9:30 and there would be games and activities. They said I could come closer to midnight and just get the book, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I was there at 9:30.

I got there and grabbed a seat in the café. There wasn’t much to do during the wait until midnight but the few things they had were fun. There was bingo, trivia, and a place to write fan theories and hang them up. I brought my Kindle, so I took this time to read a book.

Finally, at 11:50, they told everyone to line up. The people that preregistered got to go first and then the rest of us got in line. There were probably 50 people here to get the book and 25 of those had preregistered. I was the second non-preregistered person in line. I was basically guaranteed the copy I wanted but I was still nervous until the book was in my hand.

At 12:20 I got my book!

At the exact same time, I got my notification that the public library copy I requested was available. I didn’t know if I would actually get this on release day, but I placed the hold anyway just being hopeful. I ended up choosing this as the copy I would read because I like to annotate books on my Kindle and I’m able to read in the dark without a book light (which is very nice at 1:30 in the morning).

I went straight home, filmed a TikTok, and then jumped in my bed to start reading. I didn’t care that it was 1:30. I only read the first two chapters before sleep called my name, but it was nice knowing that I had two straight days of uninterrupted reading ahead of me.

I woke up to freezing cold weather on Tuesday morning, but the snow hadn’t started yet, so I ran to Target to try and get some of the Fourth Wing merch they were supposed to have with the release. The first Target had nothing left but thankfully the second Target had what I wanted. While I was hoping to see a copy of the Target Exclusive Edition, I wasn’t surprised to see them all gone. The whole release was kind of a mess at Target and a lot of stores only got a few of the special editions so I’m glad I was able to get one at Barnes and Noble.

Once I came back home, the weather started changing so I knew I was probably going to be locked in my apartment for the foreseeable future. It started snowing around five and by six it was sticking so I took a break from reading to go outside for a bit. I ended up coming back outside around 10:30 because it was snowing harder and lots of snow was on the ground.

It quickly turned back to rain and ice, so I went back to my warm bed. And with all the ice on the roads, I knew Wednesday would be an entire day inside (its Thursday when I’m writing this, and my car is still covered in ice).

This might be my favorite book in the series so far and I can’t wait for the next one. So much happened that I will need a few days to process it all. But I’m glad I got to read the book uninterrupted without having to worry about school. Definitely a top tier reading experience!

I finished the book by Wednesday night and now I don’t know what to do with myself. I guess I just have to wait until the new one is published but that could be at least a year but the author has said she’s going to take a break so it could be TWO YEARS!