Romanttasy Reading Guide: The Books Everyone Is Talking About
Something happened in publishing around 2023 and it hasn't stopped. Women started buying fantasy novels at a pace that broke sales records, crashed bookstore websites, and sent publishers scrambling to keep up. The genre has a name now — romantasy — and if you haven't been sucked in yet, consider this your invitation.
Romantasy is exactly what it sounds like: fantasy world-building with romance woven so deep into the story that if you pulled the love interest out, the whole plot would collapse. These aren't books where romance is a subplot. The desire is the plot. The tension is the magic system. The relationship is the war.
Here's who's writing it, and where to start.
Rebecca Yarros — Start with Fourth Wing
Violet Sorrengail was supposed to live a quiet life among books. Instead her mother — a commanding general with exactly zero sympathy — orders her into the dragon rider war college, where students either bond with a dragon or die trying. Then there's Xaden Riorson. He should be her enemy. He is very much not behaving like her enemy.
Fourth Wing is the book that broke the genre open. Suspenseful, genuinely sexy, and propulsive from page one. The TV series is already in development with Michael B. Jordan's production company, which tells you everything about where this is headed.
Sarah J. Maas — Start with A Court of Thorns and Roses
If Fourth Wing brought new readers in, Sarah J. Maas built the house they walked into. ACOTAR starts with a huntress who kills the wrong wolf in the woods and ends up dragged into the world of the Fae — dangerous, immortal, and not entirely what they seem. What follows is slow-burn romance, high-stakes magic, and the kind of emotional complexity that keeps readers rereading for years.
Maas was the bestselling author of 2024. Her backlist sells like new releases. Start at book one and clear your calendar.
Carissa Broadbent — Start with The Serpent and the Wings of Night
Oraya is human, raised by the Nightborn vampire king, in a world designed to kill her. Her only shot at survival is entering a deadly tournament held by the goddess of death herself. Her competition includes Raihn — a vampire she absolutely cannot trust and absolutely cannot stop thinking about.
Broadbent is the darker, more literary edge of the genre. If Maas is epic and Yarros is propulsive, Broadbent is devastating. The enemies-to-lovers tension here is genuinely earned, and the world-building goes deep.
Jennifer L. Armentrout — Start with From Blood and Ash
Poppy has lived her whole life behind rules, rituals, and a veil — literally. She is the Chosen, sacred and untouchable. Her new guard, Hawke, protects her differently than anyone has before. This one has forbidden love, political intrigue, action that doesn't quit, and twists that will make you put the book down and stare at the wall.
Armentrout has been writing compulsively readable dark romance for years and has a devoted following for good reason. This is where to start.
Why are women reading these books?
Because they want to feel something. Because the fantasy is the point — a world where desire has weight, where the tension between two people can shift the fate of kingdoms, where women are the protagonists of their own dangerous, passionate stories.
Meet the women who made this reading list possible.
→ Meet the badass women who made this reading list possible.
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