House of Sky and Breath

House of Sky and Breath is a fantasy novel by the American writer Sarah J. Maas, published in 2022. It is the second book of her Crescent City series, after House of Earth and Blood.

The series is set in a modern city inhabited by angels, fae, shifters and other kinds of being, ruled by a group called the Asteri whose power the novels describe at length. Bryce Quinlan and Hunt Athalar are the two central characters, and this book begins with the pair trying to return to ordinary life after the events of the first one, which have left their friends scattered and their city unsettled. The Asteri have kept their word and left them alone, but the rebels working against those rulers want Bryce and Hunt involved, and the plot follows what happens when they cannot stay out of it. Maas gives a great deal of the book to the relationships between the characters and to the politics of the city, and the story continues threads left over from the first novel while opening new ones.

Maas had already written the Throne of Glass and A Court of Thorns and Roses series, and Crescent City is her longest and most contemporary setting, with technology as well as magic in the world.