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Sarah J. Maas is the #1 New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author of three interconnected fantasy universes that together have sold more than 75 million copies worldwide and been translated into over 38 languages. Born on March 5, 1986, and raised on Manhattan's Upper West Side, she began writing what would become her debut novel at the age of sixteen. The story — about a teenage assassin competing in a tournament to become a royal's champion — was posted chapter by chapter on FictionPress.com under the title Queen of Glass, where it accumulated a devoted online following long before any publisher was involved. She continued developing the manuscript through her years at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, where she studied creative writing and religious studies, graduating magna cum laude in 2008. Shortly after graduating she signed with literary agent Tamar Rydzinski, and in 2010 Bloomsbury Publishing acquired the novel. Renamed Throne of Glass, it was published in August 2012 — six years after she first began writing it as a teenager.

The Throne of Glass series ran for seven novels between 2012 and 2018, concluding with the epic Kingdom of Ash. Simultaneously, in 2015, Maas launched A Court of Thorns and Roses — a darker, more romantic series rooted in European fairy tale mythology, with Beauty and the Beast forming the spine of the opening book. The series expanded through A Court of Mist and Fury (2016), widely considered her finest work, A Court of Wings and Ruin (2017), A Court of Frost and Starlight (2018), and A Court of Silver Flames (2021). Two further ACOTAR novels are now announced: Book 6 is scheduled for October 2026, and Book 7 for January 2027. In 2020 she launched her third and most adult series, Crescent City — urban fantasy set in a world where fae, angels, shifters, and modern technology coexist — completing it with House of Flame and Shadow in 2024, a book that brought all three of her fictional universes into direct contact in a landmark crossover.

It is difficult to overstate the cultural impact of the ACOTAR series specifically. Though originally published in 2015, the books experienced a second eruption of popularity in 2021 when they went viral on BookTok — returning to the top of the New York Times bestseller list six years after publication and fundamentally reshaping how publishers and retailers understood TikTok as a commercial force in the book industry. The hashtag #ACOTAR has accumulated billions of views. The series is broadly credited with establishing 'romantasy' — a fusion of epic fantasy world-building and explicit romantic storylines — as a mainstream marketing category and one of the dominant literary genres of the 2020s. Vox named Maas 'romantasy's reigning queen.' She has won the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Fantasy eight times, one of the most consistent records in the award's history, with wins spanning 2015 through 2024.

As a writer, Maas is known for morally complex characters, emotionally devastating plot twists, slow-burn romantic tension, and tonal escalation across a series — her books consistently grow darker, more adult, and more explicit as they progress. Her protagonists are typically young women who begin from a position of limitation and grow into extraordinary power. Trauma, recovery, and agency are recurring themes. The worlds she builds are elaborate and internally consistent, with layered political structures, rival courts or factions, and mythology drawn from Celtic, Greek, and Middle Eastern sources. A Court of Mist and Fury holds one of the highest average ratings of any fantasy novel on Goodreads — over 4.6 stars from more than three million readers.

Maas is married to Josh Wasserman, whom she met during their first year at Hamilton College; they married in May 2010. They have two children, a son born in 2018 and a daughter born in 2022, and live in Philadelphia. She is Jewish and has referenced her background in interviews. She is active on Instagram and known among fans for sharing cat content alongside writing updates. Hulu optioned A Court of Thorns and Roses for television in 2021, generating significant fan debate around casting — particularly the character Rhysand — but the project was reported as no longer in active development at Hulu as of early 2024.