Originally published on 9/23/25

Author Holly Black rose to BookTok (book TikTok) fame in 2020 thanks to her young adult fantasy novel, The Cruel Prince, which has earned over 1 million ratings on Goodreads and is considered one of the best enemies-to-lovers romantasy stories of all time. Despite the success, Black has kept her head down and decided to focus on what really matters to her: telling romantic, moving stories set in magical worlds. And her latest novel, Thief of Night, on sale today, is no different! Woman’s World recently sat down with the bestselling author to discuss her new novel and whether she has plans to return to Cardan and Jude’s magical word of Elfhame (spoiler: She does). Read on to discover what Black had to say.

Holly Black opens up about her new novel ‘Thief of Night’ 

Thief of Night is the second book in Black’s The Charlatan Duology. It’s also her second-ever adult novel, a fact that thrills her fans. The first book—Book of Night—was published back in 2022 and was an instant bestseller and has since earned more than 80,000 ratings on Goodreads. 

So what is the book about? We asked Black to put it in her own words: “This is a series about con artist Charlie Hall, who lives in a world where shadows can be controlled by people. They can be quickened and used in various ways. People can send their shadow out to do dirty work. They can alter shadows to look different, and as a consequence, give people minor magic abilities,” Black explains. “And this is a relatively new magic in the world, so she has spent some of her life stealing books that contain information on them. In this book, she has become the hierophant who hunts down rogue blights, which are shadows that have come loose from the people to whom they were attached and are roaming around looking for blood. She has also been tied to a dangerous blight who no longer remembers her, although they had a relationship before, and who may be able to get her, so she is in a lot of trouble.” 

Speaking of trouble, Charlie Hall has a lot of demons in her past, and Black says they were all planned out when she sat down to write the novel.

“I was very interested in the idea of someone who had made a lot of mistakes and who had turned away from her talent. She’s a con artist. She’s come into it through, in some ways, no fault of her own, but in that she has the skill, and she is really good at it, and being really good at it scares her,” she explains. “As an adult, I think it’s very easy to wind up treading water and for change to feel really frightening and dangerous. And so I was really interested in someone who’s stuck in a relationship with somebody with whom she’s holding back a lot, and he is holding back too. And they are people who are very well-suited for each other in a very different way than they think they are, but they’re lying so much to each other that they cannot see each other at all.” 

Holly Black looks back at her time in the magical world of Elfhame

This isn’t the first time Black has written about couples lying to each other. In The Folk of The Air trilogy, which is set in Elfhame, Cardan and Jude lie to each other and others about their true feelings throughout all three novels.

“The Cruel Prince [Book 1 in The Folk of The Air trilogy] was, for me, a big success. I had been so happy with how the books did and I had felt they were career-changing, and so it was wild to have them do better,” Black says of the series’ continued success. “To have them suddenly be back on the bestseller list, I was just puzzled at what’s happening. To realize they had been discovered by a community of readers who were passing them around and arguing about them and making so many amazing jokes and art, it was just a totally unexpected delight.” 

Holly Black on the controversy over Cardan’s tail

One of the highly discussed topics is Cardan’s tail, which sparked a lot of debate online over whether or not it was sexy. And like all the readers out there, Black does have an opinion on it, saying, “I’m all for it, obviously.” 

“One of the things I really like about his tail is something that I love about faeries. Fairies might look like us, but they are not us. They have a different moral system. They have a different aesthetic,” she continues. “I really wanted to make it clear that they’re not just like hot people with pointy ears, right? They’re weird. And Cardan’s tail is weird. It’s dissonant. And to me, that’s what I really like about it. It makes it clear he’s not human.” 

Since wrapping up The Folk of the Air trilogy in 2020, Black has returned to the magical land of Elfhame twice more in the form of her latest young adult duology, The Stolen Heir, which was published in 2023 and 2024. 

What’s next for Holly Black

“I knew I was going to come back [to Elfhame]. I knew I was going to do an Oak [one of the main characters] book. When I was writing Queen of Nothing [Book 3 in The Folk of The Air trilogy] I realized this character is really interesting to me. I’m really interested in Wren [the other main character] and I’m really interested in Oak. I want to know what happens to them outside of these books,” she says. “And now I’m writing another book set in that world, and I don’t know what happens after that, but I have one more—that I know.” 

In addition to writing another Elfhame book, Black says she’s “putting together my next adult proposal, so I’m trying to figure that out. And I do think that I probably am going to write some adult faerie books, but not specifically connected to Elfhame.” 

You can pick up your copy of Thief of Night now wherever books are sold. 

Link to original: https://www.womansworld.com/entertainment/books/holly-black-confirms-more-elfhame-books-after-the-cruel-prince-success-excl