A Court of Thorns and Roses is a fantasy romance series by American author Sarah J. Maas, which follows the journey of 19-year-old Feyre Archeron after she is brought into the faerie lands of Prythian.

The series centers on Feyre's adventures across Prythian and the faerie courts, following the epic love story and fierce struggle that ensues after she enters the fae lands.

[2] Maas initially intended the series as a retelling of the fairy tales Beauty and the Beast, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and Tam Lin.

[17] Like the first novel, the second is based upon multiple fairy tales and myths, including Hades and Persephone, with the Greek mythology-inspired characters such as Rhysand and Feyre and their home in the Night Court.

[24] In a February 2024 Vox article examining the phenomenon of A Court of Thorns and Roses, Constance Grady wrote: "These books go down like candy, silly and frothy and compulsively readable...What is liveliest about Maas’s writing, though, is how well she knows her formula.

He further praised Maas, whom he dubbed Romantasy's "reigning queen", for being able to write stories that are "pleasingly familiar, with a gentle touch of surprise" and commended her worldbuilding in ACOTAR for being full of "hat tips" to fantasy classics.

[26] The Independent described Sarah J Maas as a "leading force" in the romantasy genre beloved by BookTok, reporting that as of May 2024, TikTok posts about her books had been viewed over 14 billion times.

[28] And, as Business Insider noted, this online community has made her books more popular than ever: "Publisher's Weekly reported that sales of her new titles and backlist increased 86% in the 2022 fiscal year amid TikTok's massive growth.

[30] In 2022, according to the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom, A Court of Mist and Fury was tied for the tenth-most banned and challenged book in the United States.

"[48][49][50] In 2023, the Central Media Advisory Committee for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina voted to ban A Court of Frost and Starlight, the fourth installment in the series.

The committee declares responsibility for the "review and removal of books" as a result of material that is "educationally unsuitable, pervasively vulgar or obscene, or inappropriate to the age, maturity or grade level of students."