Romantasy is the shelf that took over bookshops in the 2020s, but the idea is old. A fantasy story where the romance is not a subplot. The love story carries as much weight as the war, the curse or the quest, and the book would collapse if you took it out.
That is the working definition this list uses. A fantasy novel with a kiss in chapter thirty is not romantasy. A book where two people’s choices about each other decide the fate of a kingdom is.
The books below are grouped by what readers usually mean when they ask for “more like that”: fae courts, dragons and war, slow-burn and cozy, fairy-tale retellings, and the darker end of the shelf. Each entry gives a rough heat level (closed door, moderate, or explicit), because that is the first thing most readers want to know and the last thing most covers tell you.
Quick picks. New to the genre: A Court of Thorns and Roses. Want dragons: Fourth Wing. Want something gentle: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries. Want a standalone: Uprooted or Divine Rivals (first of two). Want it dark: The Serpent and the Wings of Night.
What counts as romantasy?
The word is a blend of romance and fantasy, and publishers began using it heavily around 2023, when Fourth Wing sold in numbers usually reserved for thrillers. Three things tend to mark the genre:
- The relationship is a main plot. It has its own arc, its own turning points and its own climax.
- The ending pays off the romance, even when the fantasy plot runs on into sequels. Series often hold the final happy ending until the last book.
- The world raises the stakes of the romance. A forbidden bond between rival courts, a mate bond that cannot be refused, a bargain that ends in death. The magic is what makes the love story hard.
That separates romantasy from fantasy with romance (Robin Hobb, Guy Gavriel Kay) where love matters but does not drive the book, and from paranormal romance, which usually sits in the modern world. The edges blur, and nobody checks your library card.
Fae courts and dangerous bargains
The heart of the genre for many readers: immortal courts, beautiful and cruel faeries, and a mortal heroine who has to learn their rules faster than they can use them against her.
1. A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas (2015)
Feyre kills a wolf in a starving winter and is taken across the wall into the faerie lands as payment. It begins as a Beauty and the Beast retelling and turns, over the second book, into something much bigger. The series is the genre’s centre of gravity, and the second book, A Court of Mist and Fury, is the one fans argue about. Heat: moderate in book one, explicit from book two. Read it if you want the book everyone else has already read.
2. The Cruel Prince, Holly Black (2018)
Jude is a mortal girl raised in the High Court of Faerie, hated by the faeries around her and determined to outplay them. The romance with Prince Cardan is enemies-to-lovers in the most literal sense. It is shelved as young adult, which keeps it closed door, but the politics and the betrayals are as sharp as anything on this list. Heat: closed door. Read it if you like scheming heroines more than swooning ones.
3. Kingdom of the Wicked, Kerri Maniscalco (2020)
A witch in Sicily goes looking for her twin’s killer and ends up bargaining with Wrath, one of the seven Princes of Hell. Atmospheric, food-filled and steadily hotter as the trilogy goes on. Heat: moderate, rising. Read it if you want demons instead of faeries.
4. Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, Heather Fawcett (2023)
A prickly Cambridge professor travels to a remote Scandinavian village to study its hidden folk, and her charming, infuriating rival follows her. Written as Emily’s field journal, it is funny, cold-weather cozy and a genuinely slow burn. Heat: closed door. Read it if you liked academic rivals and footnotes.
Dragons, war and deadly schools
The Fourth Wing end of the shelf: training grounds where students die, bonds with dangerous creatures, and love interests met across a sparring mat. If this is your mood, our full list of books like Fourth Wing goes deeper.
5. Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros (2023)
Violet Sorrengail, built to be a scribe, is forced into a war college where cadets bond with dragons or die trying. The book that made “romantasy” a marketing category. The series continues with Iron Flame (2023) and Onyx Storm (2025). Heat: explicit. Read it if you want momentum above everything.
6. The Serpent and the Wings of Night, Carissa Broadbent (2022)
Oraya is the human adopted daughter of a vampire king, and she enters a deadly tournament held by the goddess of death. Her alliance with a rival vampire is the spine of the book. Darker, more literary in its prose than most of the genre, and part of the Crowns of Nyaxia series. Heat: moderate to explicit. Read it if you want vampires with real menace.
7. Powerless, Lauren Roberts (2023)
In a kingdom where the powerless are hunted, a powerless thief is drawn into a royal trial and into the orbit of the prince trained to kill people like her. Young adult, fast and full of banter. Heat: closed door. Read it if you want Fourth Wing energy at a younger shelf.
8. Quicksilver, Callie Hart (2024)
A thief with a forbidden metal-magic, a fae warrior who hunts her across a frozen kingdom, and a lot of snow. The book that took over social media the year after Fourth Wing. Long, chatty and unashamedly steamy. Heat: explicit. Read it if you like your banter crude and your hero growling.
9. A Fate Inked in Blood, Danielle L. Jensen (2024)
A Norse-inspired romantasy in which a woman with a rare gift of the gods is bound to a jarl’s ambitious son. Shield maidens, shifting alliances and the slow erosion of a marriage of convenience into something else. Heat: explicit. Read it if you want Vikings instead of fae.
Slow burn and softer hearts
Not every reader wants a body count. These books spend their pages on longing, wit and the small moments that come before the first kiss.
10. Divine Rivals, Rebecca Ross (2023)
Two rival journalists in a town touched by a war between gods write anonymous letters to each other through enchanted typewriters, not knowing who is on the other end. A You’ve Got Mail premise in a world at war, and a duology that finishes with Ruthless Vows (2023). Heat: closed door. Read it if you want to cry a little.
11. Assistant to the Villain, Hannah Nicole Maehrer (2023)
Evie needs a job, and the only one going is assistant to the kingdom’s resident villain. A workplace romantic comedy with severed heads in the office. Light, silly and self-aware. Heat: closed door. Read it if you want to laugh more than swoon.
12. Daughter of the Moon Goddess, Sue Lynn Tan (2022)
A retelling of the Chinese legend of Chang’e, told by the daughter the goddess hid from the Celestial Kingdom. Archery, court intrigue and a love triangle with a crown prince and a general. Lyrical, and concluded in two books. Heat: closed door. Read it if you like myth retold with care.
13. Radiance, Grace Draven (2015)
A human noblewoman and a prince of an inhuman race enter a political marriage, each thinking the other hideous. What follows is one of the kindest romances in the genre, built on respect before attraction. Short and complete in its first volume. Heat: moderate. Read it if you are tired of cruel love interests.
14. The Kiss of Deception, Mary E. Pearson (2014)
A princess flees her arranged marriage, and two strangers follow her to a seaside village: the prince she jilted and the assassin sent to kill her. The book hides which is which, and it is a pleasure to be fooled. Heat: closed door. Read it if you like a puzzle in your romance.
Fairy tales, retold
Retellings are romantasy’s oldest root. Most fairy tales were love stories with a monster in them long before anyone had a shelf for it.
15. Uprooted, Naomi Novik (2015)
Every ten years the wizard called the Dragon takes a girl from the valley to serve in his tower. This time he takes Agnieszka, who is clumsy, stubborn and far more powerful than he expected. The romance is a minor key next to the Wood, one of the great menaces in modern fantasy. A standalone. Heat: moderate (one scene). Read it if you want something literary and whole in one volume.
16. Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik (2018)
A loose Rumpelstiltskin told by three women, one of whom is married against her will to a king of the winter folk. Richer and slower than Uprooted, with a romance that grows out of grudging respect. Also a standalone. Heat: closed door. Read it if you liked Uprooted and want more winter.
17. A Curse So Dark and Lonely, Brigid Kemmerer (2019)
Beauty and the Beast again, but the heroine is a girl from modern Washington, D.C., with cerebral palsy, pulled into a cursed kingdom. Brave, grounded and young adult. Heat: closed door. Read it if you want a heroine who stays practical.
18. The Bridge Kingdom, Danielle L. Jensen (2018)
A princess raised as a spy is married to the king of the kingdom she has been trained to destroy. The plot is a heist inside a marriage, and the slow betrayal is what keeps readers going. Heat: explicit. Read it if you like spy plots and arranged marriages.
Darker romantasy
The edge of the genre where the love interest may genuinely be the villain, and the consent and violence get complicated. Check content warnings before you start these.
19. From Blood and Ash, Jennifer L. Armentrout (2020)
Poppy is the Maiden, veiled and chosen by the gods, and her new guard Hawke is not what he seems. A huge series with a devoted fandom; the twist at the end of book one is the reason it took off. Heat: explicit. Read it if you want a long series to live in.
20. Throne of Glass, Sarah J. Maas (2012)
An assassin is freed from a salt mine to compete as the king’s champion. It starts as young adult and grows into an eight-book epic. Romance is central, but the love interests change, which divides readers. Heat: closed door at first, moderate later. Read it if you want a heroine with a big arc.
21. House of Earth and Blood, Sarah J. Maas (2020)
The first Crescent City book moves Maas’s fae into a modern city with phones and nightclubs. Adult from the start, slower to begin, and built to a huge final act. Heat: explicit. Read it if you want urban fantasy with fae politics.
22. Heartless Hunter, Kristen Ciccarelli (2024)
After a revolution, witches are hunted, and a witch in hiding courts the city’s most famous witch-hunter to learn where his next raid will fall. Each is lying to the other, and neither is as safe as they think. Heat: moderate. Read it if you want spies falling for each other.
23. Lightlark, Alex Aster (2022)
Every hundred years an island appears and rulers of six cursed realms compete there to break their curses. Young adult, divisive, and a good choice if you like tournaments and secret identities. Heat: closed door. Read it if you want The Hunger Games with crowns.
24. Bride, Ali Hazelwood (2024)
A vampire’s daughter is offered as a political bride to a werewolf alpha. A standalone by a writer best known for contemporary romance, so the romance arc is tight and the worldbuilding is light. Heat: explicit. Read it if you want one book and a clear ending.
How to choose your next romantasy
- Start with the heat level. Young adult romantasy (Holly Black, Lauren Roberts, Mary E. Pearson) is closed door. Adult romantasy can be explicit, and covers rarely tell you which.
- Check whether it is finished. Many romantasy series hold the happy ending for the last book. If cliffhangers ruin your week, start with a standalone or a finished duology: Uprooted, Spinning Silver, Radiance, Divine Rivals, Bride.
- Pick the trope, not the cover. Enemies to lovers, forced proximity, arranged marriage, fake relationship, “who did this to you”. Most of the books above announce their trope in the first chapter. Our guide to fantasy tropes explains the classics.
- Try the softer end if the big series wore you out. Cozy fantasy has plenty of romance and far fewer battles.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between romantasy and fantasy romance? Most readers use them as the same thing. When people do separate them, “fantasy romance” is a romance novel with a fantasy setting, where the love story is the whole plot, and “romantasy” balances the romance and the fantasy plot. Bookshops shelve both together.
What is the most popular romantasy book? By sales and online attention, A Court of Thorns and Roses and Fourth Wing dominate the genre. They are good places to start because so much else is written in conversation with them.
Is romantasy only for adults? No. A lot of it is young adult and closed door, including The Cruel Prince, Powerless, A Curse So Dark and Lonely and The Kiss of Deception. Adult romantasy usually includes explicit scenes.
What should I read after A Court of Thorns and Roses? For the fae: The Cruel Prince. For the same mix of danger and heat: From Blood and Ash or The Serpent and the Wings of Night. For more Maas: Throne of Glass and House of Earth and Blood.