According to The Guardian's report, 6,000 people tried to buy 220 tickets to a masquerade ball to celebrate the release of A Court of Splintered Harmony, a new novel by romantasy author Sarah J Maas.
The Guardian reported that The Spicy Librarian, a romance bookshop in Leamington Spa, announced the masquerade ball. The summary does not say how the tickets were allocated or what they cost, and it does not say when the event was scheduled.
According to the Guardian headline, the tickets sold out within 13 minutes, and the headline quotes the remark "We sold out tickets within 13 minutes." The summary does not identify who made that remark. The headline also describes the response as fan mania.
The Guardian also reported that specialist bookshops catering to the genre have reported huge sales. The report was written by Emma Loffhagen and published on October 28, 2026. The summary does not give figures for those sales or name the other shops involved.
According to The Guardian, the ball was staged to mark the novel's release, and the report links the ticket demand to that event. The summary does not describe the ball's guest list, venue arrangements, or any further details of the program.
The Guardian's summary states that 6,000 people tried to buy 220 tickets. It does not say how many of those people succeeded in obtaining a ticket, or whether any tickets were set aside for other purposes.
The figures in this account are those given by The Guardian in the summary available to the Gazette, and the Gazette has not independently verified them. Details on the novel itself, including its plot or publication schedule, are not contained in that summary.