Victoria Aveyard Previews Adult Fantasy Debut ‘Tempest’ at BookCon

Victoria Aveyard published her first book, “Red Queen,” more than 11 years ago. With the publication of “Tempest,” she’s stepping into another world.

Billed as adult fantasy romance, “Tempest” brings a “whole new landscape.”

“I’m having the experience of essentially being a debut again,” she tells TODAY.com.

At the official return of BookCon April 18 and 19 at New York City’s Javits Center, Aveyard continued to step into that new world. During the convention, she signed books for more than four hours, mostly copies of her beloved YA series “Red Queen” and “Realm Breaker.” But a lucky few in line had advanced reader copies of “Tempest,” which isn’t set to publish until September.

Marking the first BookCon since 2019, even Aveyard — a mainstay at fan conventions who proudly admits to reading Goodreads reviews of her own work — didn’t know what to expect. When authors and influencers reached out, she says all she could really offer was something to the effect of wear comfortable shoes.

What transpired for Aveyard was hours of autographs, greenroom conversations with authors Cassandra Clare, R.F. Kuang, Veronica Roth and more, a live podcast taping of her show “Plot Twist” with writer Soman Chainani and an exclusive “book club” for early readers of “Tempest.”

There, Aveyard spilled on its “Pirates of the Caribbean” influence, nerded out over the technicalities of fantasy maps and revealed to attendees — to the thrill of her publicists and the chagrin of her editor — the name of the second book in the “Tempest” duology.

About ‘Tempest’

Aveyard first teased “Tempest” in October 2024, calling it an attempt to “scratch the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ itch” and revealing it would be both her first adult novel and her first standalone.

Aveyard recalls seeing “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” in theaters in the summer of 2003. She entered the showing with low expectations.

“Two hours later, the credits come up, the music starts, and 13-year-old Victoria is clawed to the seat,” she says. “I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since.”

Her first draft of her romantic fantasy came out to be 300,000 words, or about 1,000 pages, bringing too many challenges for the physical binding of the book.

So, “Tempest” became a duology.

Told in alternating “before” and “after” chapters, the novel follows Catrine Rose, a lady of an empire that colonizes the fictional Lyrian Sea, who eventually becomes known as the “Widow Rose” and runs a pirate tavern.

In the “after” chapters, Cat is forced to choose between helping the captured pirate Valerian Kane — described as “the only man Cat has ever loved” in the book’s synopsis — or hanging.

In the “before” sections, readers also learn just how Valerian came to be “blazing in and out of her life like a star.”

Aveyard says this story was originally “the mistress” that lingered in her brain, fueled partly by the “Pirates of the Caribbean” soundtrack.

“The thing we talk about in our industry is, there’s the idea you’re currently working on and there’s the mistress. And you usually have to ignore the mistress,” she says.

She was at first working on a book proposal for a “totally different adult book”: a reincarnation story told through four different times. One of those tales was about a pirate.

“And I thought, well, the pirate storyline is so strong it deserves to be its own thing,” she says.

She sent separate pitches of both the original book idea and her pirate story to her agent.

“She and her assistant came back with an email almost immediately, saying, ‘Do the pirates,’” Aveyard says. “And that was two and a half years ago.”