NORTH TEXAS – Monday night marks a big night for book lovers, as the highly anticipated book “Onyx Storm” is being released.
CBS News Texas
The book is the third in the popular Empyrean Series, telling the story of a young female dragon rider who finds herself in the middle of a magical war.
A reading resurgence has been building since the pandemic with the popularity of #BookTok – a social media trend on TikTok that focuses on reading and books and has gained billions of global followers. According to the UK Publishers Association, 59% of 16- to 25-year-olds say BookTok “book influencers” have helped them rediscover their passion for reading.
“So this has kind of been slowly building through the pandemic,” said Jaclyn Wooten, who opened Blush Bookstore in the Bishop Arts District last fall, aimed at catering to fans of reading and romance.
“Each year the audience is growing. The book is becoming more mainstream,” she told CBS News Texas.
The much-anticipated release of the third book in the popular Empyrean series by Rebecca Yarros led Wooten to go off-script and host her own districtwide party, filled with fun activities, including arts and crafts.
“It’s exciting to be able to interact with that community of people that all love the same thing so much,” an employee said.
Wooten is also including her sister store, Lazy Pup, and letting fans dress their dogs up like dragons. Releases like the Harry Potter series also brought lines of fans to bookstores in the early 2000s, and Wooten believes the “book craze” is back, better than ever.
“So it’s sort of great that we get to both enjoy it and also give back to those small bookstores,” Wooten said.
The event at Blush Bookstore starts at 8 p.m.
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