Sarah J. Maas

Early Life and the Start of a Career

Sarah J. Maas was born on March 5, 1986, in New York City. She began writing what would become the Throne of Glass series at the age of sixteen, posting early drafts on the fanfiction platform FictionPress under a pseudonym. The enthusiastic response from online readers kept her writing through high school and college. She graduated magna cum laude from Hamilton College in 2008 with a degree in Creative Writing and a minor in Religious Studies. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband Josh Wasserman, whom she married in 2010, and their son.

A Fantasy Empire Built from Scratch

Maas's first published novel, Throne of Glass (2012), launched what would grow into an eight-book series following an assassin in a richly built dark fantasy world. Her second series, A Court of Thorns and Roses, began in 2015 as a Beauty and the Beast retelling set in a world of dangerous faeries, and has continued to expand in scope and readership with each volume. A third series, Crescent City, launched in 2020. All three series regularly debut at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and on bestseller charts internationally. Combined, her books have sold more than 75 million copies and been translated into more than forty languages. Maas is widely credited with helping define the adult fantasy market as a commercially dominant force in publishing in the 2010s and 2020s.

Why Her Books Are Banned

In 2024, Utah enacted the first statewide school library book restriction law in the United States, and several of Maas's titles appeared on the resulting list. Four books from A Court of Thorns and Roses—A Court of Mist and Fury, A Court of Wings and Ruin, A Court of Silver Flames, and A Court of Frost and Starlight—along with Empire of Storms and Kingdom of Ash from Throne of Glass were all restricted. Objections centered on explicit sexual content and mature themes.

The bans drew particular attention because Maas's newer titles are published by adult imprints and marketed to adult readers—not to the school-age children in whose libraries the restrictions were applied. Maas has been clear on social media that she writes intentionally for adult audiences and that explicit content in her books is by design, not accident.