Romantic fantasy: History and Key Facts

Romantic fantasy, or "romantasy", is a subgenre of the broader genres of fantasy fiction and romance fiction that combines fantasy and romance, bringing to fantasy many of the elements and conventions of the romance genre. One of the key features of romantic fantasy involves the focus on relationships: social, political, and romantic.

Romantic fantasy has been published by both fantasy lines and romance lines. It can be defined as a fantasy where the plot is dependent on the romance such that it would not make sense if the romantic plot were removed. It has also been defined as stories which are romance-first within a secondary world. As a result of the financial success of authors such as Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros in the 2010s, publishers created imprints to focus on this subgenre. Some publishers distinguish between "romantic fantasy" where the fantasy elements are the most important and "fantasy romance" where the romance is the most important. Others say that "the borderline between fantasy romance and romantic fantasy has essentially ceased to exist, or if it's still there, it's moving back and forth constantly". Game historian Stu Horvath noted, "the heroes and heroines of romantic fantasy seek social connection and emotional wealth. Instead of carrying on by themselves, they find belonging in a community and a purpose larger than themselves. Magic and psychic abilities are often in-born talents; intelligent animals speak; and societies are egalitarian."

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from Romantic fantasy by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.