Bookshops staged late-night parties – with fancy dress, quizzes and cakes – to launch the third instalment of novelist’s Empyrean series, Onyx Storm

Rebecca Yarros couldn’t sell her first novel. No publisher would take it. But this week, 14 years later, legions of her devoted readers turned up to more than a thousand midnight-release parties held to celebrate the publication of her latest book.

In the UK alone, more than 180,000 copies of Onyx Storm, the third instalment of Yarros’s blockbuster Empyrean series, sold on day one of publication on Tuesday. Nearly 60 Waterstones branches held late-night parties or opened early on Tuesday morning to mark the occasion. And after some TikTok users posted videos showing that they had managed to buy the book in Asda ahead of its official release, other fans filmed themselves scouring their local branches trying to get their hands on early copies too.

The author of books such as Slow Horses and Down Cemetery Road receives the prestigious Diamond Dagger award for his contribution to the genre

British writer Mick Herron, best known for his Slough House series beginning with Slow Horses, has been awarded the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Diamond Dagger award for lifetime contribution to crime writing.

“To receive this accolade from these friends and colleagues is a career highlight and a personal joy,” said Herron. “I’m touched and thrilled beyond measure, and will try to live up to the honour.”