SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
It is not a stretch to say romance is one of the main pillars supporting the book industry right now. A recent report found this year romance sales are up 24%, and one of the biggest subgenres fueling that growth is romantasy (ph) - that blend of romance and fantasy. And I will say, I have heard many other names for this genre, including the descriptive term fairy smut, which I've now said on the radio. So why are we all so obsessed with fairies and dragons and wizards finding love, making out and usually doing more than that? Andrew Limbong, host of NPR's Book Of The Day podcast, is here. Andrew.
ANDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE: Here with the hardest news, Scott. I'm ready.
DETROW: Let's start with what exactly romantasy is.
LIMBONG: OK, you're a "Lord Of The Rings" guy, right?
DETROW: I am.
LIMBONG: OK, so imagine if Arwen, who's the elf princess - right? - imagine if she was the star of the show, right? And while all these, like, epic battles are going on around her, you followed her, get in and out of trouble, fall in and out of love, and have sex and save the day. You know, I think you'd have a pretty decent romantasy novel right there.
DETROW: I think, from what I know about him, that's something that would make J.R.R. Tolkien deeply uncomfortable.
(LAUGHTER)
DETROW: But other than that, I see the appeal. But...
LIMBONG: Yeah.
DETROW: ...Just how big is this genre?
LIMBONG: OK, that report that you mentioned in the intro about how romance sales are up 24% over last year, that comes from Circana BookScan - right? - which tracks book sales. And I called up Brenna Connor, who's the books industry analyst there, and here's how she broke down the numbers.
BRENNA CONNOR: Romantasy was the highest growth category of the entire print book market in 2024. A lot of that growth came from Sarah J. Maas as well as Rebecca Yarros.
DETROW: All right. So these are the two big names - Sarah J. Maas , Rebecca Yarros - like, the be-all, end-all. Is that fair to say?
LIMBONG: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like The Beatles and Stones of romantasy. You know, I'll let the superfans decide who's who there. But Rebecca Yarros - she's behind "The Empyrean" series. These books mix romance and sex with more, like, military and war narratives within this fantasy realm. The latest book in the series, "Onyx Storm," just came out earlier this year and sold 2.7 million copies in its first week.
DETROW: Wow.
LIMBONG: Yeah. Sarah J. Maas - she's best known for her series "A Court Of Thorns And Roses," ACOTAR for short, and it's about a woman stuck in a fairy kingdom. And according to Brenna Connor over at Circana, she was the best-selling author in the U.S. book market in 2024. She sold 10 million units in print...
DETROW: Wow.
LIMBONG: ...You know? so we're not counting, like, e-book sales or audio books or library loans. So that's how big we're talking.
DETROW: I mean, these are wild numbers for the publishing industry right now.
LIMBONG: Yeah.
DETROW: Let's rewind. How did this genre start to blow up?
LIMBONG: It's actually the pandemic and TikTok.
DETROW: Yeah.
LIMBONG: So actually, romance sales in general were on a slight downward trend in the few years leading up to the COVID lockdowns. And then we were all back - at lockdown, at home for a bit, and book sales started going back up, particularly when it came to just romance you could escape into, you know, get your mind off of things. At the same time, TikTok started getting popular in the U.S., and what we now know as BookTok (ph) started to take form. So this community of super-passionate fans, you know, sharing their favorite plot points of the book or just, like, pages from, like, the spiciest (laughter) - spiciest sections.
DETROW: What do you think it is about fantasy specifically? Like, you could have sexy pages in all sorts of genres. Why with elves and dragons?
LIMBONG: Well, you know how genres are often a reflection of our anxieties, right? Like, you know, a movie about a killer cyborg might be also about how we feel about technology or how dystopian fiction reflects worries about the climate. I talked to Netta Baker, who teaches and researches popular romance at Virginia Tech, and she pointed out to me that romantasy readers, who are mostly women, are looking for a sense of agency.
NETTA BAKER: They have power that is sometimes magical, sometimes it's enhanced physical power, but it's always power to change something that is a problem in the culture or in the world, the fantasy world.
LIMBONG: Baker goes on to say that if you pay attention to the male main characters, yeah, they might be like, grumpy or moody or angry or whatever, but they're also powerful men who not only love the female main character unconditionally...
BAKER: But who respect them, who support them, who don't sexually shame them and who listen to them, as well.
DETROW: I see the appeal. Where does the genre go from here, though?
LIMBONG: I think a lot of the newer books in the subgenre bubbling up right now deal with a darker theme, so they're sort of just pushing the edge on how gritty these books can get.
DETROW: That is NPR's Andrew Limbong, host of NPR's Book Of The Day podcast. Thank you so much.
LIMBONG: Thanks, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
