Where to start with Romantic Fantasy?
Romantic Fantasy is a subgenre of Fantasy, where love stories are woven into beautiful fantasy worlds. It combines romance and fantasy elements and tropes including magic systems, world-building, mythology, enemies-to-loves, love triangles and happily-ever-afters. It can range from light and cosy, love stories to darker fantasy with added spice - aka the infamous Booktok genre, Romantasy. Allow us to share some amazing books across the whole genre to get you started.
Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong
Immortal Longings mixes romance and suspense in a 90s Asian-inspired noir world.
Princess Calla has been in hiding ever since she murdered her family to free the people on Talin from their tyrannical rule. Only her uncle, King Kasa, remains. Every year he throws a tournament for people who can jump between bodies, a fight to the death. Calla must enter the games to finally get the chance to kill him. She is approached by the sweet Anton who wants to strike up an alliance in the games. Anton’s childhood love is in a coma, and he must win the prize money to continue keeping her in care. Callie and Anton find themselves inescapably connected and must choose between themselves, their destiny, or each other.
Blending The Hunger Games with Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra, Immortal Longings is Chloe Gong’s excellent foray into adult romantic fantasy.
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Dragonfall by L.R. Lam
An addictive and smouldering epic dragon fantasy with a dangerous slow-burn forbidden romance.
Dragons are magic-less and banished to a dying world, now worshipped as gods by humans. Humans worship dragons as gods, despite the fact they stole the dragons’ magic and banished them to a dying world. The dragons have not forgotten. When the last male dragon Everen is accidentally pulled into the human world – and in human form – by a thief named Arcady, he realises he can use Arcady to regain his power, his dragonly form and achieve his destiny. To do so, he must convince Arcady to bond with him – which will destroy Arcady in the process.
The first in an epic fantasy series, Dragonfall combines sizzling romance with epic fantasy, we just know you'll love it!
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Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco
Silver Under Nightfall takes well-loved vampire tropes and refreshes them with an East Asian setting and a queer romance.
Remy Pendergast is a walking contradiction: he is a bounty-hunter and a vampire-slayer…who is half-vampire himself. When he hears of a new, mutating kind of vampire, he prepares to find and defeat them. On his quest, however, he meets sweet and kind vampire heiress Xiaodan Song and her irritating fiancé, vampire lord Zidan Malekh who can help him destroy these creatures. As the three work together, Remy is surprised by the intensity of his feelings for the couple, and begins to reconsider everything he thought he knew about vampires and the kingdom he’s spent his life defending.
Thrilling, dark, and wonderfully queer, Silver Under Nightfall is a not one to miss.
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Nectar of the Wicked by Ella Fields
After something a little steamier? Try Nectar of the Wicked – it's definitely NSFW!
Flea is a changeling who has been abandoned by her guardian. She must work to earn her keep, and is snapped up by the wickedly charming Florian, king of a fae kingdom. He gives her everything she desires – including the truth about who she is – but she can only ever belong to him, trapped in his wintry manor.
With a scorching hot king who loves a power play, Nectar of the Wicked is a next-level spicy Romantasy.
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Fated Winds and Promising Seas by Rose Black
Looking for found family as well as romantic fantasy? Look no further than Fated Winds and Promising Seas, a refreshing queer, light fantasy with lots of feelings and heart.
Lucky is in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. In a strange occurrence he is freed from his prison and cast out to the ocean where he is rescued by magical ship The Dreamer. Aboard the ship is Gabriel, whom Lucky remembers, and starts to think there is more than fate drawing them together. They must traverse the ocean in a great adventure for Lucky’s quest to be proven innocent and finally gain his freedom.
This heartfelt queer romance is delightful – but watch out for the Leviathan!
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The God and the Gumiho by Sophie Kim
A delightful romantic Korean contemporary fantasy that reads like a K-drama. The protagonists are snarky and sexy, and their blossoming romance crackles on the page.
When a demon of darkness escapes the underworld, and the Scarlet Fox, who spends her days working at a café, emerges from hiding before quickly vanishing. Seokga, a trickster god, is offered a chance at redemption: kill them both, and his sins will be forgiven.
But the Scarlet Fox is prepared to do anything to prevent Seokga from bringing her to justice, even trick her way into his investigation. Anything, that is – except fall in love …
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This Monster of Mine by Shalini Abeysekara
Not publishing until April, but too good to miss. This Monster of Mine is a dazzling Ancient Rome-inspired romantasy debut, a bloodbath of manipulation, deception, and forbidden love.
Eighteen-year-old Sarai doesn't know why someone tried to kill her four years ago, but she does know that her case was closed without justice. Hellbent on vengeance, she returns to the scene of the crime as a Petitor, a prosecutor who can magically detect lies, and is assigned to work with Tetrarch Kadra. Ice-cold and perennially sadistic, Kadra is the most vicious of the four judges who rule the land - and the prime suspect in a string of deaths identical to Sarai's attempted murder.
Certain of his guilt, Sarai begins a double life: solving cases with Kadra by day and plotting his ruin by night. But Kadra is charming and there's something alluring about the wrath he wields against the city's corruption. So when the evidence she finds embroils her in a deadly political battle, Sarai must also fight against her attraction to Kadra - because despite his growing hold on her heart, his voice matches the only memory she has of her assailant ...
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Quicksilver by Callie Hart
With razor-sharp banter, heart-stopping action, and blistering hot romance, you won't be able to put Quicksilver down.
Saeris, a pickpocket with powers she doesn’t understand, meets Death and accidentally reopens the veil to the Fae’s land of ice and snow. She mistakenly makes a deal and is bound to Kingfisher, a secretive, villainous and gorgeous Fae warrior. He needs to use her to keep his people safe, she needs to use him to get home.
An utterly addictive enemies-to-lovers romantasy sensation, that has taken BookTok, and the world, by storm.
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Shanghai Immortal by A.Y. Chao
Set in both the mortal world and in Hell, Shanghai Immortal teems with Chinese deities and demons cavorting teems in jazz age Shanghai.
Lady Jing, loyal ward to the King of Hell, is half-vampire, half-hulijing-fox-spirit. She uncovers a plot to steal the King’s priceless jewels and sets out on a quest to thwart it. Enlisting the help of a kind and gentle mortal Tony Lee, Jing travels through the Hell and the mortal Shanghai, before she realises she has endangered Tony. She must make a choice between saving face and opening herself up to the possibility of love.
Shanghai Immortal is a love letter to Chinese mythology, steeped in Chinese history and mythos, with contemporary sensibilities and humour.