The Rise of Romantasy

Romantasy did not appear overnight; it was a decade-long convergence of two of publishing's most durable genres, accelerated by social media and a handful of blockbuster authors. What began as a marketing shorthand became the defining category of the era.

What is romantasy, and where did the term come from?

Romantasy blends the tropes of romance, slow-burn tension, enemies-to-lovers arcs, a guaranteed emotional payoff, with the imaginative world-building of epic fantasy: courts, magic systems, dragons, and fae. The word itself circulated online for years before publishers adopted it; Bloomsbury popularized it around 2022 to describe Sarah J. Maas's work, and it quickly became the industry's preferred label for a category that had outgrown both of its parent genres.

Crucially, romantasy centers the romance rather than treating it as a subplot. In traditional epic fantasy, a love story served the quest. In romantasy, the quest often serves the love story, a reversal that opened the genre to millions of romance readers who had never picked up a doorstop fantasy novel. That inversion also changed the reading experience: pacing built toward relationship beats, and world-building existed to raise the stakes of the central couple. It is fantasy engineered for readers who want to feel, not just to marvel.

How did Sarah J. Maas build the foundation?

The modern genre's cornerstone is A Court of Thorns and Roses, which Maas launched in 2015. A loose Beauty and the Beast retelling that grew steadily darker and steamier across its sequels, ACOTAR proved a lucrative thesis: readers wanted immersive fantasy worlds and unapologetic romance in the same book. The series' popularity has been remarkable for its steadiness, with new readers discovering and discussing the books nearly a decade after publication.

The scale is hard to overstate. Maas has sold tens of millions of copies globally across ACOTAR, the Throne of Glass series, and Crescent City, and her success helped power Bloomsbury to its highest sales year on record in 2023-2024. She became the bestselling author of 2024. Maas effectively demonstrated that a single author could sustain a self-contained universe, the "Maasverse", that readers would follow across trilogies and spin-offs, mapping character crossovers between series the way comics fans track a shared cinematic universe. That model turned casual readers into completists, and completists into evangelists.

Why did fantasy and romance fuse now?

Three forces aligned. First, the romance readership, long the highest-volume, most loyal segment in fiction, was hungry for escapism and world-building. Second, fantasy's mainstreaming through Game of Thrones and Marvel normalized dragons and magic for a general audience. Third, and decisively, BookTok gave both readerships a shared discovery engine. A genre built on emotional intensity, swoon-worthy scenes, and passionate fan communities was perfectly engineered for short-form video, where creators could scream about a plot twist or a "book boyfriend" in fifteen seconds.

How did Rebecca Yarros and Fourth Wing detonate the category?

If Maas built the foundation, Rebecca Yarros lit the fuse. Fourth Wing, launched in May 2023, married a war-college-for-dragon-riders premise with steamy romance and spent nearly the entire following year on bestseller lists. Its sequel, Iron Flame, sold roughly 550,000 copies in its first week in November 2023. The third Empyrean installment, Onyx Storm, arrived in January 2025 and moved about 2.7 million copies in its first week, making it the fastest-selling adult novel in the history of BookScan, outpacing even Taylor Swift's Eras Tour book.

Yarros's arc also illustrates a structural shift: romantasy's energy flows readily between self-published, indie, and traditional lanes, with BookTok, not publisher marketing, often deciding which titles break out. Sprayed edges, deluxe hardcovers, and collectible special editions became standard, reflecting a readership that treats books as objects to display as much as texts to read. Publishers learned to manufacture launch-week events, but the underlying demand was reader-made.

What's next for romantasy?

Expect consolidation and diversification at once. Publishers are racing to sign the next Yarros while readers, fatigued by imitation, reward voices that push the formula, more diverse mythologies beyond Celtic fae, more adult "spice," and crossovers into sci-fi and horror. Screen adaptations loom as the genre's next frontier, though development has lagged the books. And the flywheel keeps spinning: Maas's long-awaited sixth ACOTAR book is slated for late 2026, guaranteeing the two franchises that defined the decade will keep competing for the top of the charts. Romantasy is no longer a trend to be waited out; it is a permanent category.