Among the Burning Flowers
core novel 2025 The Roots of Chaos
Record
| First published | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.06 (17,259 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9781639736010 |
Synopsis
Among the Burning Flowers serves as a prelude to The Priory of the Orange Tree, set in the kingdom of Yscalin. It follows three interconnected figures: Marosa, held under the tight control of her father, King Sigoso; Aubrecht, her betrothed, who governs in all but name and hopes to build a better future alongside her; and Estina, a hunter of dormant draconic beasts across the realm. The story's central crisis begins when the ancient wyrm Fýredel stirs after centuries of dormancy, a reawakening that threatens catastrophic destruction and places Yscalin first in its path. As the threat grows, the novel follows how each of the three responds to a looming disaster that will reshape their kingdom well before the events chronicled in the main series.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Roots of Chaos
- Series: The Roots of Chaos core; position 3 of 3 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Samantha Shannon
Notes
- From the series record (The Roots of Chaos): New author record. A dragon-and-queendom epic fantasy told across 4 POV threads, notable for its major sapphic romance plotline. The Priory of the Orange Tree (2019) is the flagship volume; A Day of Fallen Night (2023) is a marketed 'standalone prequel' set centuries earlier in the same world; Among the Burning Flowers (2025) is a further, shorter entry in the same continuity. All 3 are published; registered by publication year, not by the series' own internal prequel numbering (#0.1/#0.2), matching this project's standing preference for sourced publication order over an editorializing reading order. In progress -- Shannon has stated further Roots of Chaos work is possible but nothing further is dated.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series The Roots of Chaos: position 3 of 3: previous A Day of Fallen Night (2023)
Sources
← The Roots of Chaos dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.