Sourcebooks is repackaging Claire Legrand’s Empirium series, originally published as a YA trilogy of fantasy novels under the Sourcebooks Fire imprint, as adult fantasy/romantasy under its Casablanca adult romance imprint. The series has sold half a million units across all formats, and the YA editions will remain in print. But, says Casablanca associate editorial director Mary Altman, “This is going to be more than just your standard repackage of a series from YA to adult.”
Altman is working with Legrand on a deep line edit of all three volumes—Furyborn (2018), Kingsbane (2019), and Lightbringer (2020)—to transform them into adult reads, with what Altman calls “the added emotional depth and nuance that is more typical of adult fiction rather than YA.” The adult editions of Legrand's three Empirium books will be released in summer 2026.
The company, headquartered in Naperville, Ill., is also investing in Legrand as an author of adult romantasy for the longterm. That includes through the expansion of the Empirium series, with Legrand planning to write prequels and sequels set in that world, which will be published under the Casablanca imprint.
When asked if repackaging books and issuing new editions for another market might become a standard Sourcebooks marketing strategy, Altman explained that this project was “very specific” to Legrand and her books. “Not all books are appropriate to make a move from one big readership to another,” she said, “and I really wouldn't want to take just any book and say, now we're going to age the characters up from 12 to 16 and add a couple of curse words and there we go. It really doesn't work. It has to be a book like Claire’s, Her books are just perfect for both audiences. I don't think all books would have that.”
Legrand insists that these new editions of the Empirium story that she conceptualized 20 years ago more closely reflect her vision at the time, as she initially had planned on writing adult romance fantasy. “My little 18-year-old brain was like, okay, this is going to be like, Lord of the Rings, but with way more women and romance and also time travel,” she said. “That was my original intent. But as I kept working on it over the years, with the guidance of my agent at the time, we ultimately decided that the story would do just as well, if not better, in the young adult market. Ultimately, it was a business decision.”
The series, Legrand noted, was always promoted as crossover YA: Furyborn adheres to YA fantasy tropes, while Kingsbane and Lightbringer are “wilder, in the best way—more sprawling and less familiar, darker, more dangerous.” Those elements, she added, “are what I'm trying to enhance as I work on bringing these books into the adult space. The elements of the story, characters and world that make this series unique and more challenging and maybe sit less comfortably in readers' minds—that's what I'm trying to bring out and enhance in the adult editions.”
Legrand also promises “more spice,” as “that's super fun—but it's more the emotional complexity between the characters and how they feel about each other, how they treat each other, how they feel about the larger world, and how their actions and relationships affect that larger world.” She added that she appreciates being able to further polish novels that she wrote years ago: “There's nothing worse than looking at a book that that's already out,” she said, “and it's gone through the editorial process, and we all missed little nitpicky things, because it's a long book and a complex world. It's very satisfying to go back and think, I don’t like that word choice, or I don't like the way the rhythm of that sentence unfolds, I'm going to make it better.”
“I always will love the YA editions of these stories,” Legrand said. “These books changed my life. I want to stress to my readers that these original editions and their feelings about them are still totally valid and real. This is simply a chance for them and for me to enjoy an even deeper, richer, messier version of the story that maintains everything they love about the originals while providing more angst, more romance, more character conflict and a deeper dive into the world itself. This is an enormous world in my head, and has been for more than half my life. There's so much rich material to explore.”
