George R. R. Martin's publisher has flatly denied that The Winds of Winter is secretly scheduled for release later this year, after a supposed leak claiming the long-delayed novel was imminent spread rapidly across X and other social platforms over the weekend.
The furore began with a tweet sharing a screenshot from an unnamed source, alleging that Martin's sixth instalment in the A Song of Ice & Fire saga had a hidden 2024 publication date and that an official announcement was just around the corner. The post snowballed into thousands of shares and breathless fan speculation, and was picked up by some smaller media outlets that treated the anonymous image as at least plausible. It is not. Bantam Books, which publishes the Westeros novels in the US and Canada, is moving to shut down its operations.
