Fourth Wing Meets The Hunger Games in Dire Bound: See the Cover! (Exclusive)

Saddle up, romantasy fans — a new magical romance novel is on the rise!

Dire Bound, written by Sable Sorensen, is a romantasy tale filled with the magical twists of Fourth Wing and the dystopian competition of The Hunger Games. Dire Bound was self-published in February and following its runaway success, will now be published by Requited, a new adult imprint from Hachette Book Group which will center characters in their upper teens and 20s as they navigate early adulthood.

The book is set in Nocturna, a realm at constant war, where humans can bond with direwolves and become the king's elite warriors called the Bonded. Meryn, a poor citizen living in the shadows of the castle, sets out to join the army after her sister is kidnapped by the enemy — only to find out she must surpass this year's Bonding Trials, a series of dangerous competitions to attempt to bond with a direwolf.

Meryn must persist through four months of training for the Trials, which in itself is a dangerous task.

"Everything here is a test, from the brutal classes where one mistake means death, to the glittering court parties where every smile hides a knife," a synopsis reads. "To make things worse, Meryn is bound to a feral direwolf who refuses to communicate."

Meryn must contend with fellow trainees who are out for her blood and her beautiful but malicious instructor Stark Therion. The only one who isn't plotting on her downfall is the "dangerously handsome" prince Killian Valtiere, but the more time Meryn spends with him, "the more of a target she becomes."

"The castle is hiding dark secrets ... and the competition should be the least of Meryn's worries," the synopsis concluded.

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Sorensen is the pen name of the author duo Eliza Phillips and Annie Paige-Stone, "two fantasy fangirls who grew up on a steady diet of wizards, magical creatures and sweeping love stories," according to a press release from their publisher.

The duo tells PEOPLE in a statement that political undertones in fantasy books are important as ever — especially when it comes to strong women facing off against tyrannical regimes, as in Dire Bound. They wanted to craft a tale of feminine rage that's "both cathartic and deeply entertaining," they said.

"It's also in many ways a coming-of-age story; Meryn is a woman in her early 20s who has been saddled with a lot of responsibility but has never struck out on her own, away from the world she knows, before the events of this book," they wrote. "She has to learn that strength comes in many different forms, and that you can always pick yourself back up after a mistake, which we think are important messages for today's young women."

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But more simply, the duo tells PEOPLE, they are both such "wolf girls" and couldn't resist the "gigantic magical" wolf element.

Dire Bound will be re-released as an e-book on May 21, and a paperback edition will be available on Aug. 26.