Image Credit: Unsplash- Mike Jumapao
If you’ve recently stepped foot into a bookstore or are tangentially connected to the online book world, there’s no way you’ve escaped the popular term that’s splashed across signboards and mentioned in every Bookstagram caption. ROMANTASY. You’ve likely accepted it at face value – a subgenre promising to be a mix of both romance and fantasy. It sounds almost too good to be true: your favorite complex magic systems and fantasy worlds combined with, well, romance. The characters aren’t your typical big-city magazine editor and small-town baker, or even two lawyers who hate each other and eventually fall in love. In romantasy, you can self-insert as a long-lost princess with emerging magical powers who, in a twist of fate, meets a dragon-riding shadow lord who falls deeply in love with you as you work together to save the kingdom from enemy invaders. Sounds more exciting, right?
Romantasy has all the traits of the “perfect” genre, especially if you already love both fantasy and romance. It appears the rest of the world also agrees because publishers can’t stop releasing romantasy titles. That said, does it feel like every book that’s marketed as a romantasy is consistently pumping out the same old stories repackaged, repurposed, and rammed down our throats? This exact question led us to record an episode on the concept of romantasy (check out “Is Romantasy Dead?”), and to be completely honest, we didn’t have the most positive of feelings. At the heart of our conversation, we tried to understand the chokehold romantasy has on BookTok. Maybe we need to adjust our algorithms but it seems that almost every “hot” book is now a romantasy, and most of them end up being “overhyped” focusing only on tropes with not much plot.
Before we attempt to answer the question of what happened to romantasy, we must first ask what exactly is romantasy and where did the term come from? Even though the term was first referenced in Urban Dictionary as early as 2008, the term was most notably coined by the publisher Bloomsbury in 2022 to label Sarah J. Mass’s A Court of Thorns and Roses series. Wikipedia has a page for “Romantic Fantasy,” calling it “a subgenre of fantasy fiction that combines fantasy and romance” that uses “many of the elements and conventions of the chivalric romance genre. One of the key features of romantic fantasy involves the focus on relationships, social, political, and romantic.” Our main takeaway from these sources is that within a romantasy, romance isn’t just a subplot but instead, it’s the driving force of a story’s plot.
Another distinguishing characteristic of romantasy is that it’s often written by female authors – the complete opposite to the very male dominated field of traditional high fantasy (think Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones). This often means that the narratives of romantasy books are more women-focused, with female main characters (FMCs) who are as beautiful as they are strong – capable of waging battle and at the same time, fought over in love. We’ve all seen the discourse that dating in this day and age is a hot mess, especially given the harsh reality of online dating. It’s no wonder that women are drawn to romantasy where they have the chance to escape dating IRL and immerse themselves into worlds where the female characters are not only powerful but their male counterparts are also the “perfect” partner…a dynamic only a woman author can get just right. In the end, it does make sense why romantasy is so highly craved. But just because it’s generated such a hype, is it really necessary for publishers to centralize their focus on this subgenre?
It’s constantly “romantasy this, romantasy that,” and with the incessant marketing of the term, is it possible that publishers are setting this subgenre up to fail? While a romance-heavy fantasy sounds like a great idea, we get the impression that it comes at a cost, where we’re reading less about magic and adventure in a uniquely crafted world and more about two supposedly hot people getting together. From our POV, this tradeoff has been accepted by the wider romantasy reading community, especially by those who are mostly there for the spice heavy romance. For example, Ayesha came across a review for a highly talked about romantasy where a Bookstagrammer said, “some fantasy books get bogged down in either the plot or the magic systems,” arguing that this particular book didn’t follow such a pattern, which the reviewer appreciated. Some context (and maybe bias): the book in question was, in fact, underdeveloped with no explanation of its variety of magical beings and severely lacked a coherent plot. And yet, for a moment it was one of the most talked about books across BookTok.
Being centered around romance, romantasy books are relying more and more on trope jumping simply to satisfy readers’ appetite for romantic intrigue. Yes, a one-bed trope is much more fun when it takes place in a roadside tavern after a harrowing day of escaping magic-wielding enemies, but good storytelling cannot solely rely on a series of tropes and “feet-kicking” moments. However, BookTok seems to tell us otherwise. Promoting certain tropes is a quick and guaranteed way for a book to gain traction on a platform that moves at lightning speed and capitalizes on trends. Have publishers been bitten by the trope-bug because they’re happy to publish stories on the sole basis that they are easier to market? This leads us to another problem: are publishers encouraging low-quality storytelling at the cost of guaranteed sales?
Gone are the days where readers, eager to find out the fate of a character captured by a villainous lord, have to wait years for the next book in a series. Instead, we have publishers putting authors on shorter timelines to release books almost every year. Rebecca Yarros’ Empyrean series is the most obvious example. Following the release of Fourth Wing in 2023, it was hard to find a physical copy in stores due to the traction this dragon war academy stirred up online. Even we admit that the original premise of the book intrigued us with a potentially unique magical world; however, with the quick-fire releases of Iron Flame last year and Onyx Storm earlier this year, it’s hard to ignore the flaws in the books. Plot holes and lazy world-building aside, the books were riddled with grammatical errors and misprints from the rushed release date. Also, while we understand book tropes aren’t just “one and done,” Yarros’ repeated tropes drag out the romance so much that it detracts from the story’s central theme: people fighting against invaders and leaders who don’t listen to them. Again, it’s great that we don’t have to wait too long for the follow-up on cliffhangers, but we’d prefer that authors take the time to plot out their story before publishing rather than play Russian roulette with tropes.
While tropes aren’t entirely to blame, their overuse, and frankly false marketing, is leading to readers lowering their expectations of the actual fantasy aspects within romantasy. We’re not saying to do away with tropes entirely, but perhaps that they should be used more intentionally. If the characters are meant to be enemies to lovers, make them actual enemies who take time to build up a romantic relationship, not two people who kind of hate each other and then jump into bed after 100 pages.
Since we’ve talked a lot about tropes and how we think they’re not being used to the best of their abilities, it’s only fair to share which ones peeve us, as well as which ones we want more of!
Our top 5 grievances about romantasy, aka the tropes we have a bone to pick with:
Crazy age gaps: Look, we’re not a fan of an age gap in contemporary fiction (we’re talking concerning ones where it could be grooming) and that’s the same in romantasy. Serious question: What is the appeal of being with a male who’s hundreds of years older than you? We understand that magic, physical strength, and power accumulated over centuries can be attractive qualities, but if he’s 500+ and still acting like he’s looking for “intimacy, without commitment,” is that really what we want?
Fated mates: Maybe it’s because we’re single, but we don’t buy into fated mates. For one, it’s definitely overused in the genre. But also, we’re not big believers in the whole soul mates idea. Of course, it sounds lovely that there’s a person out there for you; however, we believe that you fall in love multiple times.
Stereotypical characters: Once upon a time, tattooed shadow daddies with dark hair and skin were attractive. Now, they appear to be everywhere, and it’s boring. Yes, Rhysand is hot, but he’s not the blueprint. Also, we’re not fans of the tiny FMCs who’ve never exercised or trained in their lives but are somehow masters at battle. By this logic, the two of us should be knights.
Insta love: Tension makes our knees go weak! With the insta love trope, you completely eliminate that yearning between characters. Most romantasies are enemies to lovers but when you have insta love and things are getting immediately spicy a few chapters in…it doesn’t make sense.
Poor writing: Simply put, some romantasy books need better plotting. A lot have a great foundation with the unique magic systems and worlds, but ultimately, the execution was a miss.
Our top 3 favorite tropes to read in romantasy:
Slow burn: As we said, we love tension. When there’s tension, there’s yearning. And when you have these paired with the next trope…well, it’s *chefs kiss*.
Enemies to lovers: Like many others, we enjoy this trope…but with some serious caveats. They have to be actual enemies, not just strangers who don’t know much about each other. On the flip side, we don’t want the type of enemy where he’s slaughtered your whole family and you’re just okay with it. Thank you, next…and maybe lock him up while you’re at it.
Love triangle: Dare we say this? This trope is a great addition to present tension and yearning, so of course, we’d eat it up. For extra spice, make the love triangle between two brothers fighting over someone.
At the end of the day, we’re not trying to hate on romantasy, we promise! But we are a little frustrated with the way the publishing industry and capitalism have flattened out the subgenre. All that to say, how long do we really think this fascination with romantasy will last? Do you think the romantasy bubble will burst? Listening to the noise around recent releases, the tide may be tilting towards dystopian romance titles like Silver Elite and the upcoming To Cage a Wild Bird. We guess we’ll just have to wait and see!
About Us: Julia Yee and Ayesha Mukherjee are co-hosts of Hot Girls Read Podcast – a podcast all about books. We cover everything from our favorite books in every genre and deep dives into specific books, to niche topics like interracial romance reads, our most loved characters, and more. You can listen to us on most podcast platforms, like Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
This was written by our contributing writers, Ayesha Mukherjee and Julia Yee of the Hot Girls Read Podcast.
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