Illustration by Sarah Farquhar
Not so long ago, “romantasy” was essentially limited to a small corner of BookTok.
Fast forward to today, and you can find this genre collision of fantasy and romance everywhere – on the shelves of both major book retailers and indies and climbing bestseller lists. Romantasy is transforming the publishing industry in tangible ways.
According to Bloomberg, the genre brought in US$610-million in 2024 alone. In June, 2025, Circan Book Scan reported 51 million romance books had been sold in the U.S. in the previous year, up 24 per cent from 2024. Within that broad genre figure, romantasy was among the fastest-growing categories. In Canada, BookNet found that romantasy titles such as Rebecca Yarros’s Onyx Storm and Callie Hart’s Quicksilver were in the top 10 bestselling romance hardcovers last year.
The latest trend in reading? Classic novels
All of this adds up to a genre that now feel ubiquitous, which prompts the questions: Is this a trend that audiences will eventually tire of? Has romantasy evolved since the world first learned just how fun it is to read about a heroine who discovers her hidden power while falling in love with a morally grey hero, set against a backdrop of magic and nail-biting drama? Or, is romantasy only just getting started?
We chatted with experts for their read on the state of romantasy in 2026.
Jessica Cottignies, fan and content creator @romantasywithjess
Jessica Cottignies/Supplied
On the state of romantasy in 2026
Romantasy is booming. Both on BookTok and Instagram, there’s been such a community built around it, with so much love, joy and just fun. I’ve got several book besties that I’ve never met. Today, I exchanged 20 voice notes with one of them, just discussing a book. I’m also part of a few groups that do book exchanges, where we share our wish list and then talk about them as we read them.
When I think about romantasy, the words that come to mind are female empowerment, female agency, female pleasure. Those are things that are imperative in these stories, and what makes the genre so special.
Is the genre oversaturated?
There definitely are a lot of books. I mourn it sometimes, because my time is finite. I just wish I could read more. And while there are so many options, and you could say the space is a bit saturated, it makes it more special trying to find those gems. And authors are rising to the challenge, too, coming up with a new way of having a crazy plot twist or a cliffhanger, or a new take on a trope. Lady knights are having a big moment because we’ve got a bit of gender-bending compared with traditional archetypes. It fuels creativity on the author side, which makes it really exciting.
New trends on her radar
Everything is getting darker. You’re seeing things with higher stakes, more emotional damage, characters are not safe. You’re seeing higher spice become less taboo and more mainstream as people are able to explore more in a safe environment. Viking and Norse-inspired romantasy is having a moment now. Pirate romantasy is popping up.
A lot of it is also nostalgia-inspired. You’ve got Vampire Diaries references, a book just released that’s Buffy the Vampire meets Fourth Wing. There’s a Sailor Moon romantasy. I consider it romantasy-adjacent, but dystopian romance is absolutely popping off right now. I think it’s going to grow exponentially.
Maddalena Cavaciuti, literary agent at David Higham Associates
Sarah Newman/Supplied
On the state of romantasy in 2026
It’s been such an exciting part of the market for the last few years. What I’ve loved about it is how reader-driven it is. It used to be the case that publishing would tell us what we wanted to read by putting those books in front of us. With romantasy, readers weren’t seeing what they wanted from traditional publishers, or they weren’t getting it fast enough, or there wasn’t enough of it. BookTok became a community where people could share these recommendations, and readers didn’t care if the book they were hearing about was traditional or indie published. They also didn’t care if it pushed the envelope beyond what a traditional publisher might be comfortable with. They just wanted to be reading the books they love.
I think romantasy will continue to do that. The book of the London Book Fair was the All The Young Dudes adaptation, for want of a better word. [This is Harry Potter fan fiction about Hogwarts in the 1970s, told from the perspective of Remus Lupin, a.k.a. Moony.]
Increasingly we’re seeing popular fanfics being picked up by traditional publishers because those stories have already proven themselves to have an established audience. What we’re also seeing a lot of is books that have been self-published and risen up the Kindle charts because readers love and recommend them go on to be picked up by traditional publishers. Readers are now the voices leading where the trends go.
On what publishers seem to be looking for
There has been caution around how long the romantasy bubble is going to last for a couple of years now. A couple of years ago I had a publisher suggest to reshape a proposal from a trilogy to a duology for that reason. I don’t know if someone would say that to me now. What I’m seeing is that once readers get into a series, they’re proving very loyal as long as the books continue to be excellent.
But I am expecting to see more stand-alones. Readers now have a list as long as their arm of series they’re in the middle of. There’s definitely room for big, juicy stand-alones to swoop in and demand attention. I had a deal recently for one such epic stand-alone that was over 200,000 words, and no one flinched. Publishers were excited about the idea that you could get that deep, immersive fantasy feeling and a slow-burn enemies-to-lovers stories all in one book.
On what’s landing in her submission box
I’m seeing more darker-edge stuff and more genre-bending submissions. For example I’ve had more dystopian romantasy and sports romantasy, which is quite fun. I’ve already seen a couple of Formula 1 dragon-racing books published this year. I’m seeing more monsters, more gods. They add that extra level of stakes and jeopardy.
It’s quite a tricky time to be going through submissions for romantasy because it’s such a tightrope. With the books that we’re seeing achieve crazy success, it’s not difficult to point out a lot of ways in which they are similar. A lot of them have really strong female main characters, they often start with a love interest who is probably an enemy, they take place in worlds that sometimes borrow from the same lore or are filled with creatures from other of our favourite romantasy books.
Those things are working really well and readers still have an appetite for them, but the challenge for an agent is that they then become quite indistinguishable on a pitch level when received on submission. My job is to find the one that stands apart, that does something bold and original and offers a new perspective.
Amanda Gauthier/Supplied
Amanda Gauthier, director, print experience at Indigo
On the state of romantasy in 2026
We’re seeing the community get stronger and more diverse. I don’t see this trend weakening at all. Just the reading habits it introduces to the community! The amount that this reader reads in a year is incredible. Now that reading takes up that space in their lives, and they love it, they’re not ready to give it up. Even screens and streaming don’t seem to compete with the place these books have in their lives.
On how much bookstore real estate romantasy is getting
We’re seeing more dedicated shelf space – and more unique selling SKUs, which means we’re not just selling more copies of the same authors, we’re seeing brand new authors and series coming into that. We’re seeing some teen authors write into the adult world, and we’re seeing some adult authors move down and introduce some of that softer romantasy to the teen reader. It’s just very vibrant, and it continues to surprise and change every quarter. We had a pretty fantastic year for fiction in general. Something we’ve learned is that when the world is hard, people seek out escape in their storytelling.
On the impact the new Sarah J. Maas book, coming Oct. 27, will have this year
We’re very excited. She’s incredible. She’s very connected to her readership, and does a lot to make sure that community feels cared for. It’s going to be a very big deal. We’ll be planning midnight releases and fun events. I love when something like this happens in that community, because everybody comes out for it.
Supplied
Deandra Lalonde, content sales lead for North America at Rakuten Kobo
On the state of romantasy in 2026
In 2023, 2024, it just really exploded, and those sales haven’t really stopped. It just goes up. We’re seeing more people join in, and we’re not really seeing it slow down. The announcement of books six and seven in [Sarah J. Maas’s ACOTAR series] is what the genre needed this year. This will be that really big push, and I think it will drive sales of people who will reread the series because it’s been so long, or people who will want to be part of the conversation. And that’s where social media comes in. People don’t want to feel left out – and when this is going to be all that’s talked about, we’re only going to see it continue to grow.
On how the genre is evolving
There’s still a bit of faerie stuff, and that will always be there, but the dragons are popular. I’m hopeful that as the sub-genre breaks down to more sub-genres, that allows for more people to come in. There’s definitely been more of a draw to dark romance. I don’t know if it’s just a reflection of the state of the world, or because as it’s become more popular, it’s easier to talk about. It’s just been really fun to watch these genres grow in that way. As they become popular online, it’s allowed people to tap into what they actually want to read but maybe didn’t even know existed.
On whether the genre has room for the next Sarah J. Maas or Rebecca Yarros
I think so. I would never say never. Rebecca Yarros surprised all of us. We weren’t expecting that to blow up the way it did. And even when Fourth Wing released, it took a few months. It was word-of-mouth. It just takes that one spark with the one right person to say it to the right other person for another author to really take up that space. We’re constantly surprised these days. Bookselling used to be pretty black and white. You had a pretty good idea of what was going to sell. But BookTok has flipped the game on its head, because all of a sudden one TikToker says one thing and another genre, author, book is in the stratosphere.
These interviews have been edited and condensed.