How disability representation comes to life in new romance novel Onyx Storm

“I think she’s disabled,” was my first thought as I read Fourth Wing. The clues started to stack up as I raced through the book. I was not a usual fan of romantasy, but what drew me in was the main character, Violet: a disabled woman who dreams of being a dragon rider, despite the ableism in her way. I loved that she had a good friend, Jesinia, who is Deaf. 

I especially loved that none of this was explicitly mentioned; none of this was explained by a tidy medical diagnosis. Violet and Jesinia exist in this fantastical world, without additional explanation required. There’s even a disabled dragon! 

After reading Fourth Wing and its sequel, Iron Flame ravenously over the course of Christmas holidays, I discovered that the author, Rebecca Yarros, was disabled herself and lives with a chronic illness. While the time period between the first two books was short, the third book Onyx Storm (which came out in January 2025) was over a year away, as Rebecca said she needed to pace herself.

Rebecca experienced burnout racing to meet publisher and reader demands of the next novel being out as quickly as possible. At the back of the success of the first two novels, she was able to slow down, pace herself, and assume a more regular publishing schedule. Basically, she was able to assert that crip time was needed to complete the third novel. It’s also needed to complete the fourth.

I was in awe that Rebecca was a disabled woman, writing about disabled characters, and writing on her own time. It made the experience of reading all three novels more lovely. The fan-girling moments I have over the novel and the world-building with my disabled friends gives us something hopeful to talk about in a world where disability can still be seen as negative. Seeing Rebecca write about and live with disability made me think that being a disabled author, writing about disability, was and is possible.

This belief was cemented the other day, when reading Out on a Limb, another book with a disabled character. This novel, written by Hannah Bonam-Young, also a disabled woman, features a woman with a limb difference who gets pregnant after a one-night-stand with a man who also has a limb difference. It’s a classic romance trope, but with a bit of a difference. I know disabled people who have started families, know of the possibilities, and yet I still cried, feeling exposed in a lovely way by this book and seeing disabled people’s stories written on the page. 

I want to see more novels written by disabled people, featuring disabled people. Give me more novels where disabled people are fully developed characters, where disability is just one of their many parts. If we want to have disabled people represented in novels, we need disabled people writing, and given opportunities to do so.

In New Zealand, at least 17% of us are disabled, and we never know when we’re going to experience disability in our lives. Encountering disability in novels helps both to centre it as part of the human condition, and also show the many different experiences we have. Whenever I read a novel featuring a well-developed disabled character, written by a disabled person, I feel as though a hand is stretching through the page, saying we are here.

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