Sarah J. Maas on ‘Call Her Daddy’: Greatest ACOTAR Reveals

Sarah J. Maas broke months of silence about the future of her A Court of Thorns and Roses series in a nearly two-hour conversation on the March 4 episode of Call Her Daddy, hosted by Alex Cooper. The interview covered two upcoming ACOTAR books, the fate of a potential TV adaptation, the fandom’s most divisive character, and a string of tantalizing non-answers about long-standing fan theories.

The reveals were scattered across the full runtime. Here is every piece of new information Maas shared, organized for readers who want to get up to speed fast.

A spoiler warning before going further: major plot details from Maas’s Throne of Glass series, A Court of Thorns and Roses series, and Crescent City series are discussed below.

Two New ACOTAR Books Are Arriving Back to Back

The headline reveal: fans can expect two more ACOTAR books, and they’re arriving in rapid succession. The first comes out October 27 of this year. The second follows on January 12, 2027 — roughly two and a half months later.

That back-to-back release schedule is the direct result of how the story came together. Maas described the project as a single massive narrative told in four parts, with the first part releasing in October and parts two and three combined into the January volume. Part four has yet to be written.

Maas did not reveal the title of the project or the POV character. She told Cooper the POV was “one of the like surprising things for me, like writing this and like what came out.”

“Like it’s, you got a lot of like, insight to like various things,” she said.

She Has the Rights Back — and She’s Taking Her Time with Adaptations

One of the most-asked questions in the ACOTAR fandom concerns the screen adaptation. In 2021, it was revealed that Hulu would be adapting the series. In 2025, it became clear the project had fallen through. Cooper asked Maas directly what was happening.

Maas confirmed she now has the rights back to everything.

“So, I have the rights back to everything now and getting the rights back to all my things has been a big part of my journey in recent years that maybe at some point soon I will talk more about, but right now my focus is on books and it’s been a little while since you guys have had something, so I’m focusing on that,” she said.

She’s not walking away from the idea of adaptations, though. She described them as “another facet of the worlds that I’ve created” and made it clear she intends to control the process when it does move forward.

“I want to be in charge of, I want to be figuring out, like I want to be learning everything that I can. I’m a type A control freak a little bit, but I want to know everything about how it gets made, not because of that control, but just because I love movies. I love TV. I want to be a part of that and I want to see everything adapted the way I envision it and the way I know fans want it.”

No Compromise on Creative Vision

Maas pushed back on the kind of compromises that sometimes come with Hollywood adaptations.

“I don’t ever want to hear like, ‘Oh, we need to change this to appeal to XYZ’s demographic.’ I’m like, ‘No, that’s not how you make art. That’s not how I create my stories,’” she said.

The music for any adaptation would be a major undertaking for her: “‘What does it sound like?’ ‘cause music plays such a big part, so I’m not just gonna, like, the music is gonna have to be like a huge project.”

She framed the adaptation as something deeply personal.

“I view it as my legacy in a way where I’m like, I put my books out into the world. That’s one way that the fans are interacting and seeing these characters, but the physical version of that needs to be aligned. It can’t just be someone’s take on that. I’m like, ‘No.’”

No casting for Rhysand yet, either. When the topic came up, Maas said simply: “I have yet to find my perfect Rhys.”

Tamlin’s Redemption Arc: The Hardest Question She Faces

If you follow the ACOTAR fandom even casually, you know Tamlin is divisive. Cooper asked Maas directly: will Tamlin ever have a full redemption arc?

“I don’t know,” Maas said.

She then explained why this question is so difficult — and it has less to do with plot mechanics than with what the character represents to real readers.

“I’ve had so many women, especially including some like very dear friends of mine who like come up and told me about like how they saw their own abusive relationship mirrored in Tamlin. And so if I were to ever write like more about Tamlin, it would be done in a way where like, it doesn’t erase what he has done and it doesn’t like invalidate the feelings of like my readers who have connected to that.”

She described a conversation she had with one of her close friends, a survivor of domestic abuse, who “often refers to her ex as Tamlin.”

“I’ve actually talked to her that like, how would you feel like, you know, like if just like me as the creator, like separating us as friends, like, would that feel like a betrayal to you? And so like we’ve had like interesting conversations about it, but it’s something I’d really want to think about.”

Maas said she’s given herself multiple options for the character but acknowledged it may be the hardest narrative challenge she faces.

“That’s probably like the hardest thing for me to figure out, like, to be quite honest, like, that’s tricky for me. It’s tricky for me also just emotionally because like partying wants to be like, that f***er can burn in hell forever. But like as a writer I’m like, but like, what is the story? What is like, and like, not to excuse him for any of it, but explore it.”

“F*** Marry Kill” With Her Own Characters

One of the lighter moments: Cooper asked Maas to play F*** Marry Kill with Rhysand, Hunt, and Rowan — three male leads from her different series.

Maas’s first instinct was practical.

“I’m trying to think of the realities of my own marriage and what has worked and what doesn’t work. I’m like, ‘Which one of them farts the least?’ That’s the one I want to marry, because I live with that reality,” she said.

Cooper pointed out the obvious: “Well, you know. You wrote these people, so you tell us.”

Maas couldn’t bring herself to choose.

“I kind of want to f*** all of them to be quite honest and marry all of them. I don’t want to kill any of them.”

Fan Theories: Addressed, Teased and Dodged

The back portion of the interview featured a rapid-fire segment where Cooper fired off long-standing fan questions about all of Maas’s series. Maas answered some, dodged others, and dropped hints that will fuel months of new speculation.

On what Lorcan did (Throne of Glass): “Oh, someone explained this to me, like a couple months ago. I dunno, I didn’t know how to feel about it then. I dunno how I feel about it now. I mean, like, maybe like bonus content and like a surprise Christmas present sometime for all.”

On where Vaughn is (Throne of Glass): “You know, that’s actually a thing that I think about a lot. A lot. And that’s all I’ll say about that.”

That’s a non-answer, but the emphasis — “a lot” repeated twice — will set off a round of new theories.

On whether the settling is the same or similar as the drop: Maas refused to engage. “Okay, let’s skip, just skip. Just skip. Just come out, come go.”

The refusal to answer is itself a kind of answer, at least for fans trained to read Maas’s evasions as meaningful.

Why Aelin had to lose her powers

This question got a longer, more thoughtful response.

“I do think that, like, I actually really grappled with that one. Where I was like, I hate the idea of her having to give up something that she learned to love and embrace. But at the same time, I do think that there needs to be some level of sacrifice when it comes to making a decision that big. To give up something that you love for something else, like that’s powerful. I don’t think it would, the ending, would’ve felt as deserved.”

She also hinted that the loss opens a new narrative door.

“What does it look like for her after that? You know, like you go from like all this power and you give it up and, how does that feel? I find that there was, even with that as an ending, it felt like a different start of a journey. That just was fascinating for me.”

The Clearest Explanation Yet of How Mates Work

Maas gave what amounts to one of the most direct explanations she’s offered on the ACOTAR mating bond system.

“It’s kinda like your destined true love… [But] there’s a biological component to it, where you can be mated with someone who’s not your true love. There’s true-true mates, and there’s nature made a mistake. Like Rhys’ parents did not love each other, it was not a great relationship, but they were mates.”

Being mates doesn’t guarantee compatibility or love. There are “true-true mates” and then there are biological pairings that nature got wrong. Rhys’s parents are the example she pointed to.

Hints about Mor, the House of Wind, and a Blanket Tease

On how Fae get into the House of Wind (ACOTAR): The House of Wind in the Night Court is famously accessible only by 10,000 stairs or by flying. Cooper asked how non-winged Fae manage the trip.

“This might be something that you find out,” Maas hinted.

On Mor’s powers (ACOTAR): Mor’s abilities have been a source of fan speculation for years. In the books, her power is described as “truth,” but she hasn’t been shown to wield much beyond that, leading to theories about hidden abilities.

Maas confirmed the basics: “Truth. But you like to have other powers beyond that. But I’m not gonna reveal any more about it, there might be more about that.”

Then she opened the floodgates with a blanket tease.

“You know what, everything is possible. Everything you’re asking right now could just be like, yes. The answer is yes. You’ll find out.”

The ‘Twilight of the Gods’ Pinterest Board and Unpublished Manuscripts

Cooper brought up something that had caught the fandom’s attention: a now-deleted Pinterest board Maas had titled “Twilight of the Gods,” which appeared to represent a brand new, unrelated book series.

Maas downplayed it.

“Really? That was just like a story that I like. It was kinda like Crescent City where like, I always have manuscripts and other stories in my head.”

She then revealed something that may surprise fans: she has a stockpile of unfinished work sitting on her computer.

“I think I have… probably like three or four like unpublished full books for different series on my computer. That I dunno if they’ll ever see the light of day, but, sometimes I just get a story in my head and I wanna start writing it and I get ideas for it, and it comes out, and sometimes I wanna share that with the world and sometimes I don’t.”

Three or four unpublished full books. Whether any of them ever reach readers is an open question, but the fact that they exist at all says something about how Maas works — she’s generating far more material than what makes it to shelves.

Watch the full “Call Her Daddy” episode here.