By Eliana Fulton
In my small corner of Texas—Denton—a hot new local book store recently dropped into the downtown area, just off of the main square. The air still had a bite of winter, so my roommate and I donned our cutest long sleeve shirts, thinking we would be in and out of the grand opening. We proceeded to wait four hours in a round-the-block line just to walk through the doors.
I know what you’re thinking—that’s an insane amount of time to wait for a bookstore—but I made up for it by buying everything I never knew I needed.
As we stepped into Plot Twist Book Bar, we were in awe of the wall to wall romance shrine that filled the store. The themed shop sold books, of course, but the other half of the interior was dedicated to themed bookmarks, candles, mugs, margarita mixes, stickers, Kindle covers, and so much more. It astounded me that an entire bookstore, even a small one, could focus solely on romance, but with all of the different kinds of romance, they could expand into a much larger space and still not have enough room.
The newest standout amongst these romantic variations filled up over half the shelves: Romantasy. Much of the merchandise had fan art of book boyfriends, quotes from steamy scenes, or silhouettes of dragons and fairies. One thing was clear in this romance readers’ haven: romantasy isn’t just a book preference, it’s a way of life.
From Bride by Ali Hazelwood to Quicksilver by Callie Hart, many current bestselling books are exploring the collision between fantasy and romance. These stories predominately feature conflicts in both the couple’s relationship and their fantasy setting. Just as we saw young adult dystopian novels sweep literary culture after the premier of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, romantasy has taken center stage.
Her Origin Story
Romantasy may be a recent craze, but it is not an entirely new idea. Authors like Mercedes Lackey, Emma Ball, and Diana Gabaldon have been writing romantasy since the 1980s, and I’m sure you could find examples of books even further back that meet the criteria. Based on those names, it’s clear that this sub-genre is dominated by female authors, but more on that later.
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas sparked the most recent wave of enthusiasm as the popular fae-themed Beauty and the Beast retelling began a theme targeted at young adults (high-schoolers) and what has become known in the industry as “new adults” (age 18-30). Where earlier romantasy books were aimed at 30 to 50 year old women, the new target demographic for romantasy is generally 18 to 30 year old women. Therefore, the main characters tend to be… 16 to 21 year old women. I’m not sure how the math works out on that, but that’s how old they usually are.
Now, books like Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros have taken over bestseller lists and the all important BookTok space. BookTok is a category of content, primarily on TikTok, that revolves around books. Influencers and regular readers give reviews, recommendations, and commentary on things they’ve read. This space is usually devoted to contemporary novels, and can be a lottery or doomsday for a new author. How a book is received on BookTok, even by just one creator, can mean life or death for its sales.
BookTok loves romantasy, and romantasy is selling very well right now.
Her Opps
All writers come to a fork in their career path where they must decide whether they want to be a genre writer or a literary writer. There are pros and cons to both, and there is overlap between them.
Genre writers—like blondes—have more fun. We read genre books for the story, and to escape the real world without thinking too hard. We read literature to make ourselves think.
Romantasy is often criticized by literature readers for being “poorly written” and/or underdeveloped because the main focus of the book is—as the Booktok community would say—‘spice.’ Spice is often included in adult romance novels as a way of developing the main couple’s relationship intimately with the reader. Despite this critique, spice is hardly ever the main focus of a romantasy book.
Romance is often scrutinized within literature because it is female dominated. If we take a look at a popular male written fantasy series, we can compare the differences in public analysis.
The A Song of Ice and Fire series, written by George R.R. Martin is a critically acclaimed seven book collection that was adapted into the hit show Game of Thrones. This series includes romance, but more often it includes rape, incest, and prostitutions as part of the cultural world building. Of course, these problematic instances of women being abused are important realities of our world—I’m not saying we shouldn’t write about them—but what does it say about our culture when we respect their appearance more than the healthy, consensual relationships in female written fantasy?
What Makes a Good Romantasy?
There are two ways to interpret this section head. Is a “good” Romantasy something that does well on BookTok and sells millions of copies, or is it enough to simply be a well-written and captivating book? You may be wondering: Why can’t it be both of those things? My answer would be that it can be, but if I knew how to do that, I would be making way too much money to sit around writing blog posts.
As I said before, readers do not read genre books for groundbreaking literature. Unfortunately, top-selling genre books lean towards tropes and fan service. A well-written book can have some of those things but doesn’t lean on them as much as guaranteed bestsellers do.
Makin’ the Bacon
Let me tell you the story of every romantasy book I can think of:
A young woman exists in an extraordinary world, but she is so plain that she cannot do anything about the evil forces that are compromising that world. One day, she enters a new place where she discovers that not only is she not ordinary, she is the chosen one with a rare special ability. Only she has the power to save her entire world by herself, but she’s not sure if she can do it. Luckily, she meets a tall, dark, insanely handsome man who is just a few years older than she is. He is also special, but for different reasons. They hate each other, but she needs his help. Even though they hate each other, they are extremely attracted to one another and end up falling for each other. Eventually, she learns that he has been hiding something from her, and she’s really upset about it, but she still loves him. During their lover’s quarrel, which is probably just a miscommunication problem, they have to go to war to save the world, and she will use almost all of her strength to do it. In the battle she will tragically lose one of the funny side character friends, and it will rejuvenate her vengeance against the enemy that is personal because of her vague backstory. They somehow tie in the battle, and in book two she will continue fighting with her boyfriend and/or choose between her boyfriend and her boy best friend—and also they’ll find a way to save the world.
If you think that is hyper specific, I’m afraid you haven’t read any of these books yet. Also, I only really based that description off of three romantasy books I’ve read, and my peer reviewers guessed a different fourth book that I haven’t read, proving my point.
I even asked ChatGPT to estimate how many of these books exist, and it guessed between 5,000 and 15,000 published in the past two decades.
Let’s break down those tropes:
The Reluctant Chosen Girl: Think Katniss Everdeen. You want her to be scared but capable and have some kind of ability that sets her apart. Usually in romantasy the ability is a special kind of magic, but for a real twist you can make her the only human amongst magical people. In Cruel Prince by Holly Black, Jude, the main character, was the only one who could lie.
Magical World: This world-building and magic system is the most fantasy heavy part of the sub-genre. You can be creative, but the most popular baseline worlds are dragons, faeries, wizards, and vampire/werewolf (a classic). For an extra level you can focus any of these locations on school or academy, so that your same-age main characters can meet each other faster. Bonus points if they are training for something.
Enemies-to-Lovers: This is flexible for whatever your chosen romance trope is, but this one is the most popular. There should be life or death stakes for the relationship, but it should not take that long for them to get together. The miscommunication trope is common for enemies-to-lovers and serves to have the characters question why they moved past those life or death stakes so fast. Think Persephone and Hades, but happier.
World-Saving War: You can build up to this, or have it be an ongoing crisis. For some reason this is always equal in importance to the romantic conflicts, but some side characters should die for the cause. This way your reader can see that something is at stake.
Makin’ Art
People love all of those things I listed in the first section. I know I do, but if all I can say about your book is that it reminds me of some other books, then you haven’t used all of your creativity. At the risk of sounding cliche: you have a story that only you can tell. Romantasy is your oyster, and I’d like to see more authors ignore the cookie cutter mold and take a risk on a new type of story.
These books exist of course, they’re just not at the top of everyone’s queue. Still, my advice to new romantasy authors exploring the sub-genre is to enjoy the freedom that comes with making your own magical world. Writing a book that is “just like” Fourth Wing or ACOTAR or Cruel Prince is like playing Minecraft on creative mode and making a house out of dirt. You can pick literally any material and you don’t even have to make a house.
Happily Ever After/ Happily Ever After… For Now
Romantasy books are so much fun, and they’re so much more than their tropes or spice. This new wave of literature has sparked a joy for reading in so many young people and boosted the whole of the book selling industry.
I love all of the books I title/name dropped in this post, and I am so in awe of their authors’ talent and success. As readers and writers, we need to appreciate this jumpstart, and drive forward into more creative stories to expand romantasy to its full potential.