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New Statesman
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
The romantasy infatuation
Fairy tales, it seems, are out of fashion. After all, what do they have to teach a modern reader? Finding Prince Charming is passé; we should be getting comfortable with our own company. Evil stepmothers aren't such a problem when you can just go no contact. And going to sleep for 100 years no longer has to affect your career arc – we're all on our own timelines! Yet look a little closer and you might find that a new kind of fairy tale is alive and well. Because what are most of them if not love stories, set in magical worlds? Romantasy, a relatively new literary genre that offers exactly that, is, largely thanks to its popularity on TikTok, having a seismic effect on the books industry. As the name suggests, the genre combines fantasy realms, drawn from the depths of folklore, Gothic fiction and mythology, with a romantic plot – and readers cannot get enough. Science fiction and fantasy sales were up more than 40 per cent in 2024. Romantasy author Sarah J Maas, whose book A Court of Thorns and Roses was released in 2015, was the best-selling author in the US last year, selling 7.7 million copies, and Fourth Wing (2023), the first in romantasy star Rebecca Yarros's Empyrean series, was the seventh bestselling book in the UK across all genres. In January the third instalment of that series, Onyx Storm, became the fastest-selling adult title ever, selling 2.7 million copies in its first week, after people queued in bookshops at midnight dressed up as their favourite characters to buy it on its day of release. These authors find themselves in a curious position (as well as unthinkably rich). Harry Potter and true fairy tales are, of course, for children. But as much as romantasy has inherited the feverish fandom that often comes with an absorbing magical world – fans of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars are some of the most obsessive in the world – it is also the natural successor to Mills & Boon, Jilly Cooper and 50 Shades of Grey. 'Dragon porn' has become shorthand for romantasy; steamy sex, or 'spice', to use TikTok parlance, is part of the happy ending. In these fairy tales, the heroines can have it both ways, winning authority over the entire magical realm and a handsome stay-at-home fairy husband. Violet Sorrengail, the breathless narrator of Yarros's Empyrean series is a typical romantasy heroine. She's in her early 20s, studying at Basgiath War College to be a dragon rider, despite being smaller and less physically fit than others in her 'quadrant' (this is widely thought to be a nod to the fact that Yarros suffers from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome). She can 'wield' lightning, communicate telepathically with her two dragons and loves nothing more than riding them – except perhaps allowing her classmate, previously sworn enemy Xaden Riorson, to fuck her senseless. Xaden – who also rides dragons, and with whom she can also communicate telepathically due to a dragon-related loophole – is her spiritual and sexual soulmate. 'Xaden is mine,' Violet thinks. 'My heart, my soul, my everything. He channelled from the earth to save me, and I'll scour the world until I find a way to save him right back.' Such lines are unfortunately characteristic of the genre's prose. 'He hasn't kissed me like this since before the battle at Basgiath,' Violet notes. Yarros's dialogue comes thick and fast – at times it's more like reading a script than a novel. Where the authors diverge in fantastical creatures they coalesce in style: in Onyx Storm (dragons) but also A Court of Thorns of Roses (faeries) and The Serpent of the Wings of Night (vampires, by Carissa Broadbent), line breaks and full stops are used liberally for dramatic effect. ('Fast. They're too damned fast,' says Violet as she encounters some 'venin', AKA the baddies of Navarre.) Violet's warrior status, her appetite for danger, her courage, her unbridled sexual desire, put her in a different category from the hapless virgins of Disney and the Brothers Grimm who are, all these years later, still stuck in their dusty old volumes fannying about with spinning wheels and dwarfs. Feyre, the narrator of Maas's bestseller A Court of Thorns and Roses, is also a scrappy little fighter, one who carries daggers and arrows and scoffs early doors at her sisters 'chattering about some young man or the ribbons they'd spotted in the village when they should have been chopping wood'. When Feyre unknowingly kills a faerie, and is captured and taken away from her family to the dangerous faerie kingdom over the border and forced to live in the lap of luxury, she protests at the princess treatment: 'I hadn't worn a dress in years. I wasn't about to start, not when escape was my main priority. I wouldn't be able to move freely in a gown.' Both Maas and Yarros's heroines are strong and independent – and yet in both cases they are bound to the man they love, or will grow to love (most romantasy relationships begin as enemies), through life and death. 'You're the only one capable of killing me,' says Xaden, who has been infected by venin as a sacrifice for Violet. In A Court of Thorns and Roses, a loose retelling of Beauty and the Beast, Feyre must fall in love with the 'High Lord' Tamlin to break the curse on his kingdom. Their every interaction is loaded with danger: Tamlin is a shapeshifter and could, if he wanted to, tear her to shreds with the huge claws that are at risk of appearing every time he slightly loses emotional control. Similarly, in Broadbent's The Serpent of the Wings of Night, the heroine Oraya is a human always endangered in a world of vampires. Raihn, her vampire love interest, could kill her, and she has a duty to kill him. 'I could open his shirt, slide my hands over the expanse of his chest, and thrust my poison blade right here – right into his heart. He could tear away this ridiculous delicate spiderweb of a dress and cut me open,' Broadbent writes. 'The two of us could burn each other up.' Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe This violent, exaggerated language persists across the sexual scenes. 'He's kissing me like I'm the only air he can breathe'; 'nothing existed but him'; 'My entire world constricted to the touch of his lips on my skin'. Orgasms are 'fracturing', 'splintering', 'shattering', 'unravelling'. The intensity and danger is part of the sexual fantasy – but the heroine in each case is in some way just as dangerous to the man as he is her. Readers will be reminded here of Twilight, the late 2000s young adult series by Stephanie Meyer that caused a similar frenzy among teenage girls. In Twilight a normal high school girl, Bella Swan, falls in love with a vampire, the sublime Edward Cullen. Bella was dangerous to Edward because he was dangerous to her – he loved her so much that he couldn't risk endangering her by 'losing control' (read: having sex and unwittingly tearing her body to shreds). But what made Twilight so compelling to young women hoping for a perfect love was the unique power Bella had over Edward, and the fact that he did stay in control despite his potential to cause her harm. A similar dynamic pervades A Court of Thorns and Roses: 'The full force of that wild, unrelenting High Lord's power focused solely on me – and I felt the storm contained beneath his skin, so capable of sweeping away everything I was, even in its lessened state. But I could trust him, trust myself to weather that mighty power. I could throw all that I was at him and he wouldn't balk. 'Give me everything,' I breathed.' Elsewhere, though, we are reminded of Feyre's pluck: she is not powerless against Tamlin. Rather, she chooses to sleep with him when she wants to, and doesn't when she doesn't: 'Don't ever disobey me again,' he said, his voice a deep purr that ricocheted through me, awakening everything and lulling it into complicity. Then I reconsidered his words and straightened. He grinned at me in that wild way, and my hand connected with his face. 'Don't tell me what to do,' I breathed, my palm stinging. 'And don't bite me like some enraged beast.' Though plenty of effort is taken to give gravitas to the imagined worlds they feel thinly drawn, like costumes and sets. Names for places and people lack the consistent and distinctive syntax of Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, and immersion in the world is often reduced to crude signifiers, particularly adapted curse words. Yarros, for example, is careful only ever to refer to 'gods', plural, as in 'oh my gods' and 'godsdamn', usually deployed at moments of sexual ecstasy; occasionally she opts for 'by Malek', as in, 'by Malek, I fucking love you'. Maas goes for 'Cauldron boil me!', while Broadbent opts for 'Goddess', 'Mother', and the exclamation 'Ix's tits'. If all that feels silly, it's nothing on the fact that, despite stating at the outset of Onyx Storm that the text 'has been faithfully transcribed from Navarrian into the modern language' and yet the students of Basgiath War College still understand concepts like 'boundaries', 'overthinking' and 'hitting the gym'. You half expect them to return to their chambers from a great battle and crack open a can of Diet Coke. These are, clearly, very modern fairy tales – and, as that would suggest, full of contradictions. A handsome prince, yes, but one who does not control you, one over whom you maintain a sexual power, one who wants you to be free of the damage he could inflict on you. Intense sex, yes, but sex that is incredibly high stakes. A heroine who is powerful and independent but believes in and experiences the kind of true love that is increasingly being called into question by our rational, transactional world. That's the real fantasy: to be she who has it all. Who has the things that we once wanted and the new ones. The good bits of this and of that. The perfect man, and the perfect self. The danger and the safety. The pleasure and the pain. It's not surprising we need a magical land to imagine those things could be true. [See also: English literature's last stand] Related
Daily Mirror
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Rebecca Yarros fans 'work out' major character twist in Fourth Wing book four
Fans of The Empyrean series have been left with plenty of theories following the ending of Onyx Storm, with some suggesting that a popular character could be a secret villain Devotees of the Fourth Wing saga are on edge for the next chapter of The Empyrean series, but it seems they might be in for a bit of a wait, as author Rebecca Yarros has let slip that she's yet to put pen to paper for the upcoming book. Despite the potential stretch ahead, eager fans have been busy spinning theories about the future twists and turns of the narrative, with whispers that a fan-favourite might just reveal their true colours as a villain. Heads up, there are spoilers ahead for the ending of Onyx Storm! The speculation isn't without merit, especially since Onyx Storm wrapped up with Xaden turning venin and abandoning Violet in Aretia, where she's unexpectedly become the Duchess, despite having no memory of marrying Xaden in the hours following the battle of Draithus. But the plot thickens beyond Xaden becoming fully venin – readers are abuzz with the possibility that his cousin Bodhi and best friend Garrick might have also embraced their darker sides. Yet, some fans reckon another character might have been a secret villain all along. Casting a suspicious eye towards Violet's friend and squad member Ridoc, the Inner Circle podcast duo, Georgie and Adalia, have floated the idea that the series' comic relief character may be masking a sinister truth, reports the Mirror US. In a social media musing, the pair reflected: "Still thinking about what Jack Barlowe said: Ask me when I turned. Ask why only initiates bleed.' "And then it was never followed up on... but when Violet was sure Ridoc was stabbed and jumped to compress the wound, Ridoc didn't bleed and said it was only his jacket. Despite Violet seeing it lodged in his side.. "What if Ridoc is venin and is just high enough rank that Xaden can't detect him??" The fan theory sparked a flurry of responses, with one person pointing out: "I had SO MANY THEORIES about this scene until someone told me to go back and read it. It never stabbed him, it specifically says that it missed him and went into the counter. "Ridoc was giving me suspicious vibes the whole book. I'm convinced something is up with him," another reader insisted. However, not everyone was on board with the speculation, as one commenter argued: "With how mad he was at Violet and Xaden for keeping it secret I don't think this is the case. He was far too bad and if he was higher ranked than Xaden he would have known about Xaden sooner." "Just because the lower ranks can't detect the higher ranks, doesn't mean the higher ranks can't sense the lower. Riddoc would have known and not been surprised/angry about Xaden."
Express Tribune
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
'Fourth Wing' TV series: Josh Heuston linked to Xaden role as Moira Walley-Beckett leads adaptation
Development of the Fourth Wing television adaptation continues to gain traction as speculation intensifies around actor Josh Heuston's potential casting as Xaden Riorson. The adaptation of Rebecca Yarros' bestselling Empyrean series is being produced by Amazon MGM Studios in collaboration with Michael B. Jordan's Outlier Society, with Moira Walley-Beckett attached as showrunner. First announced in late 2023, the series is based on the romantasy saga that follows Violet Sorrengail's perilous journey at Basgiath War College, where elite students are trained to become dragon riders. Set in a high-stakes fantasy world, the story combines military academy politics, magical warfare, and forbidden romance. No official casting has been confirmed, though Josh Heuston's name has been linked to either the role of Xaden or Bodhi. When questioned, Heuston commented, 'You have to ask the scribes, I suppose,' further fuelling fan discussions. Author Rebecca Yarros has publicly maintained her stance on accurate representation, stating that Xaden will be portrayed by a person of colour. 'They know how staunch I am against whitewashing Xaden,' Yarros said, reaffirming the series' commitment to diversity in casting. Moira Walley-Beckett, best known for her work on Breaking Bad and Anne with an E, has earned high praise from Yarros for her handling of the adaptation. During the launch of Onyx Storm in January 2025, Yarros confirmed reading multiple drafts of the pilot script and described it as 'phenomenal,' adding, 'I kicked my feet the entire time—I love it.' Production timelines remain under wraps, with no confirmed release date. The series is expected to follow the narrative arc of the five-book Empyrean series, which includes Fourth Wing, Iron Flame, and Onyx Storm. Books four and five are currently in development.
The Guardian
18-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Romantasy, Bridgerton, audio porn apps: it's a great time for horny ladies
When it was released in late January, Onyx Storm – the third book in Rebecca Yarros's The Empyrean series – became the fastest selling adult novel in 20 years. It sold more than 2.7m copies in its first week, according to the New York Times. Across the US, fans lined up in the cold outside of Target stores to nab special edition copies. In the UK, there were midnight-release parties where attendees wore costumes, made friendship bracelets and applied dragon-themed temporary tattoos. The Empyrean series is a prime example of romantasy – a genre that blends high fantasy and romance. It follows the cadet Violet Sorrengail as she trains to be a dragon rider. Fast-paced and detailed, the books boast mythical creatures and magic. There's also a lot of sex. On more than one occasion, sturdy wooden furniture is broken during vigorous bouts of lovemaking. Violet climaxes every time with her generous lover, Xaden. Violet and Xaden's dragons are mates – and they have sex too. Romantasy has exploded in popularity in recent years. It's also lucrative. In May 2024, Bloomsbury publishing announced that it had its highest sales year ever thanks in large part to Sarah J Maas, whose romantasy series A Court of Thorns and Roses (known by fans as Acotar), Crescent City and Throne of Glass saw a 161% sales increase in the 2023-2024 fiscal year. Fans say it's easy to get hooked. Emily Porter, a photographer based in West Virginia, started reading romantasy in the summer of 2024. She had never been a big romance fan, but loved fantasy stories. 'I was seeing those Acotar books everywhere – in stores and on friends' Instagram stories – so I figured I'd see what all the fuss was about,' she says. Although Porter had been an avid reader as a teenager, after college she didn't read much – maybe 10 books a year. She finished all five books of the Acotar series in less than a week. Then, she began tearing through other romantasy series. In the eight months since she first cracked open Acotar, she says she has read nearly 150 fantasy romance books. 'I went from being embarrassed about not reading books at all to being embarrassed about reading over 20 books a month,' Porter says. Highly sexual fantasy stories are nothing new. But romantasy is part of a recent wave of entertainment that makes sex look not just enjoyable, but fun for women. The genre tends to have strong, opinionated heroines; hot male protagonists who ask about consent; diverse characters; queer storylines; and mutually enjoyable couplings. And for some of its readers, it's improving their real, non-magical sex lives. Vanessa Marin, a sex therapist and host of the podcast Pillow Talks, says she started reading romantasy novels because so many of her clients and followers were talking about them: 'It got to a point where it was a professional obligation.' She's heard from a lot of readers who say their lives and relationships have benefited from romantasy. 'I've had a lot of women tell me: 'Previously, I felt like I had low libido or even no libido, and these books feel like they're bringing me back to life,'' Marin says. Reading about sex causes readers to think about sex more. This in turn causes them to desire it more. 'It's keeping sex top of mind,' she explains. Women have told Marin the books have encouraged them to explore their sexuality in ways they haven't before, whether it's trying out a new position they read about, or centering their own pleasure during sex like many of the genre's protagonists do. Porter says romantasy hasn't changed her sex life, but it's reinforced her confidence in her own long-term relationship. 'The tropes and elements I love the most all remind me of my own relationship with my partner,' she says. Dragons, magicians and fairies abound in romantasy, but the genre's recent explosion has produced more unusual stories. One of Porter's favorite authors, Mallory Dunlin, wrote a book called The Gardener and the Water-horse, which, according to Porter, features 'an immortal being who can shift into a man, and a horse, but really he's a lake – like a body of water – who's also a virgin'. These playful, surreal, magical elements are part of what makes romantasy so appealing, Marin says. 'Most of us tend to take sex very seriously, so to have something that feels fun, playful, lighthearted and whimsical, that's a really great thing for a lot of people.' Romantasy isn't the only kind of horny escapism consumers are flocking to. The first three series of Bridgerton are three of Netflix's 10 most popular shows of all time. Romantic TV leads like Andrew Scott (Fleabag), Katherine Moennig (The L Word) and Lucien Laviscount (Emily in Paris) voice breathy episodes for the audio erotica app Quinn, which describes itself as 'created by women, for the world'. In Laviscount's episode, the Regent, he voices Peter Kelly, a notorious jewel thief who 'recalls a series of thrilling encounters with fellow thief Katerina Laszlo'. Moennig voices Sam Shaw, a reclusive rockstar 'and you are tasked with ghostwriting her memoir'. Quinn's listeners reportedly tune in for 24m minutes every month. On a Reddit forum dedicated to discussing the app, users say the content helps them explore and reconnect with their sexuality. '[Quinn] literally woke me up,' wrote one user. 'I thought my libido had mostly gone to sleep.' Perhaps unsurprisingly, much of the recent content that shows women enjoying sex is made by women. When sex scenes are 'produced or written by a woman, that's really different than when it's written or produced by a man', says Christina Marshall, a bookstagram expert and self-described 'romantasy fiend'. Erotic content produced by women tends to foreground women's desire and consent, she says. The sex also tends to be safe. Faye Keegan, CEO and co-founder of Dipsea, another audio erotica app ('stories made by women, for women'), says their content shows situations that are sexually, emotionally and physically safe for women. Sign up to Well Actually Practical advice, expert insights and answers to your questions about how to live a good life after newsletter promotion For example, Keegan says, 'If two people are going to hook up, and they're in a semi-public space, let's make sure there's a lock on the door and that you can hear the door close and the lock click.' And if a man and a woman meet and spontaneously decide to hook up, Keegan says Dipsea scripts 'try to give the listener a perspective into the male POV so they can hear his voice, and know he's a cool, good guy. He's not a villain in this story'. Nevertheless, stories that feature sexually aggressive or very persistent male suitors are also popular. For instance, a lot of male romantasy heroes are possessive and hyper-fixated on their partners. When Xander sees Violet talking with her ex-boyfriend in Onyx Storm, for example, he uses his magical shadow powers to slam the ex into a wall. Marshall says these characteristics are green flags in a fantasy book, but red flags in real life. 'I don't actually want some stalker, ultra-possessive person,' she says. She argues that these characteristics are an exaggerated way of showing a man's devotion. 'In a fantasy book, he's going to burn down the whole world and kill all these people for you,' she says. 'In reality, you just want someone who's going to put your best interests first.' Many romantasy fans say the genre doesn't get the respect it deserves. Marshall recalls being at a reading where a man described Acotar as 'fairy smut'. (The protagonists of the series are faeries – hot, immortal magical beings – and there is a lot of sex.) The comment annoyed Marshall. 'What makes you think that this epic fantasy is fairy smut, when you would never call Game of Thrones dragon smut?' she says. To her, it is part of a 'longstanding pattern of dismissing anything women love as frivolous'. The idea that romance books were some sort of low-brow, shameful pastime was never accurate, says Leah Koch, co-owner of the Ripped Bodice, the first romance bookstore to open in the United States. '[Media] was pushing that narrative, but it is not really true.' Still, romance connoisseurs acknowledge that this moment is different. Koch says that in the 10 years she's been running the Ripped Bodice, she's seen readers attitudes shift from 'proud, but insular', to 'yelling from the rooftops, and saying: 'If this is something you have a problem with, you're the weird one.'' Marshall says Instagram and BookTok – TikTok users who post videos about books – have taken romance and romantasy to a new level. BookTok was key to the supersonic success of Maas and Colleen Hoover, the author of It Ends With Us, for example. 'It became a new forum for readers to connect, and amplified a conversation globally that existed already, but was happening in the privacy of our homes.' In addition to this bottom-up pressure, Keegan, of Dipsea, says there have been more women in positions of power bringing these stories to broader audiences. 'Bridgerton is a great example,' she says. 'Shonda Rhimes had the budget and the sway to make that kind of content. These stories aren't new, but being able to bring this big-budget Netflix experience, that's what's new.' Fantasy and period pieces also offer a much needed form of escape at a time when women's health, safety, gender identity, sexuality and reproductive rights are being widely threatened. 'The shittier things get on earth, the more people want to go fly with dragons and divorce themselves from reality,' says Koch. Contemporary romance – where two regular people with charmingly twee jobs meet and fall in love – isn't enough of an escape anymore. 'Sure, he's a cute baker and she owns a flower shop and whatever, but still, you wonder if his mom voted for Trump,' Koch says. The desire for female-centered romantic and erotic content doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Experts predict genre fiction like romantasy will continue to grow in popularity. Netflix recently shared a sneak peek of Bridgerton season 4, and a Fourth Wing TV series in early stages of development. 'The real world is exhausting and stressful,' says Porter. 'I'd rather spend my free time being immersed in fantastical worlds with creative magic systems, adventures, happy endings, and best of all – yearning.'
