Romantasy: sexy tales of women-centred fantasy fiction are boosting the publishing industry
In certain corners of the internet recently, people have been debating why “women can’t stop reading fairy porn”.
These discussions centre around the fantasy romance genre, also known as romantasy, which has exploded in both popularity and sales. Onyx Storm, Rebecca Yarros’s third book in The Empyrean series, was the fastest-selling adult novel in 20 years when published in early 2025, according to the New York Times. It sold more than 2.7m copies in its first week.
Bloomberg reported that romantasy was estimated to bring in US$ 610m (£455m) in sales in 2024, revitalising the publishing industry. These growing sales have made us, as feminist marketing scholars, interested in understanding this genre and its readers who swoon over muscular, handsome faerie princes and dream of dragon taming.
Traditionally, male readers have dominated fantasy fiction fandoms. As such, narratives centring female characters have often been sidelined in many of the most popular fantasy fiction books. Think of J.R.R. Tolkein’s Bilbo and Frodo Baggins from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, or Fitz from Robin Hobb’s The Farseer Trilogy series.
Romantasy stories counter this, offering fantasy worlds where romance is a key plot point. The protagonists are often women and they centre women’s stories and women’s romantic relationships.
Female characters in these books set off on “hero journeys”, meet handsome and caring men along the way, experience romance and sexual pleasure, and defeat evil. In some ways, romantasy follows many familiar fantasy tropes, including good vs evil, medieval settings or magical schools, fantastical creatures and magical powers. However, they also incorporate tropes from romance – a genre that has historically sustained the publishing industry – such as enemies to lovers, forbidden love and forced proximity (oh no, there’s only one bed).
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Romantasy books, however, are often mistaken for erotica or “smut” for women. Readers sometimes rank books in terms of “spicy” levels indicating how salacious their storylines are. However, sexual content is not new to fantasy. Some of the most popular fantasy books, like George Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series (Game of Thrones), include frequent and graphic sex scenes.
Romantasy, however, has a distinct draw. These stories feature experiences of consensual sex and female-centred sexual pleasure while also tapping into complex themes. For instance, Rebecca Yarros’s Fourth Wing deals with chronic illness and Sarah J Mass’s A Court of Thornes and Roses deals with several traumas, including grooming, sexual abuse, war and poverty.
Romantasy authors, who are often women, aim to eschew the “male gaze” typical of much media, including literature. This is where, as feminist film scholar Laura Mulvey describes, women are often presented as passive objects for male sexual pleasure and viewing, rather than as active subjects with agency. For instance, in A Song of Ice and Fire and similar fantasy books, the sex often includes a form of violence against women.
Romantasy books instead centre the “female-gaze” in which female desire, power and identity are explored from a female point of view.
In the study we are working on, women have expressed that romantasy enables them to experience romantic and sexual fantasies that they might not experience in the real world, and helps them discover and experiment with their sexuality.
Younger readers we spoke to found liberation in reading about realistic and non-taboo representations of women’s romantic and sexual fantasies. Women from conservative cultures said they were inspired by female characters who are not afraid or ashamed to seek out sexual pleasure.
Romantasy books are not without their issues, however. Despite the female-centred narratives, some of the most popular books in the genre perpetuate heterosexual norms, either ignore racial and sexual diversity, or feature problematic and limiting representations of them. For example, Rebecca Yarros proudly states that Xaden, the male love interest character in Fourth Wing, is not white, without specifying which race he is – as though all non-white racial groups are the same.
However, in our study, we continue to find that even if all women (especially older women and women of colour) cannot connect to romantasy protagonists, they resonate with how these stories prioritise female pleasure and safety, with partners that are devoted to them. It is not only “smut” or “spice” that appeals to female readers, but more importantly, the acknowledgement of women as sexual subjects, rather than objects for male pleasure or targets of sexual violence.
While sex is an important part of romantasy, it is not erotica. Where erotica is all about the sex, often, the “spicy” content in romantasy only lasts a few pages and is a part of a broader romantic arc between the protagonist and the supporting male love interests.
As the genre continues to grow, we hope that romantasy is taken seriously by the publishing industry (it’s certainly benefiting from it) as well as by the wider public. Currently, the industry popularises TikTok viral books, resulting in repetitive, white-centric and heterosexual stories. There are, however, diverse representations to be found. For instance, The Emily Wilde series by Heather Fawcett or Paladin’s Grace by T. Kingfisher both feature women in their thirties and forties.
For queer representation and cosy romance, there’s Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree. Additionally, books by women of colour, like The Inheritance Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin, and The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty, feature racial and ethnically diverse characters in a fantasy setting with a romantic subplot.
Perhaps in time, like with other genre writing, publishers and readers will seek out, support and promote more diverse stories in romantasy that will appeal to all kinds of women.
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The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.