Utah author Brandon Sanderson has another “Secret Project” coming out. This will be his fifth Secret Project book to be released.
Title and release date
In a video released on March 21 on his YouTube page, Sanderson gave a first look at the new project, reading several of its chapters, and announced a couple tentative titles.
According to the video, the title of the new secret project will be “Isles of the Ember Dark.” Or just “Ember Dark.” Or maybe something else. The release date is a way off, so there is lots of time for that title to change.
Per the project description on Sanderson’s Words of Radiance Leatherbound Backerkit page, there is no concrete release date yet. But a shipping disclaimer on the Backerkit page says the Secret Project hardcover books are anticipated to ship in mid-2025. Ebook and audiobook options will also be available.
What we know about the new Secret Project
Besides potential titles and a rough release timeline, there are a few other things we know about the new Secret Project.
Per Sanderson and the first look video, the book will be dual narrative, following a dragon named Starling and a human named Dusk, who has already been seen in the short story “Sixth of the Dusk.” The book will be set in the Cosmere’s space age, similar to Secret Project 4, “The Sunlit Man.”
In the March 20 episode of his podcast, Intentionally Blank, Sanderson also talked a little about the new Secret Project. He said it would be one that has “high Cosmere connectivity,” meaning it will tie heavily into his other Cosmere works, such as the “Stormlight Archive” and the extended “Mistborn” Series.
In the Intentionally Blank episode, Sanderson stated that this new Secret Project book is something he has been working on for several years, but that the bulk of the book was written over the course of a couple of trips to Hawaii in 2023.
Brandon Sanderson’s Secret Projects
Back in 2022, Sanderson announced he was releasing four novels he had secretly written during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. The novels were called his “Secret Projects,” and they were made and released periodically throughout 2023 using money from a record-breaking Kickstarter campaign.
The four Secret Project books are:
- Secret Project 1 — “Tress of the Emerald Sea,” released in January 2023.
- Secret Project 2 — “The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook For Surviving Medieval England,” released in April 2023.
- Secret Project 3 — “Yumi and the Nightmare Painter,” released in July 2023.
- Secret Project 4 — “The Sunlit Man,” released in October 2023.
Each of the Secret Project books is a standalone story, meaning they can be read on their own. But three of them, “Tress of the Emerald Sea,” “Yumi and the Nightmare Painter” and “The Sunlit Man,” have “high Cosmere connectivity,” again meaning they tie into Sanderson’s larger Cosmere book universe.
Watch the first look and chapter readings video
You can watch the first look and chapter readings video from Sanderson here: