About a week after the Christmas decorations were settled in the attic for another year, I realized Valentine’s Day was in front of us. So down from the attic came the boxes, up with the hearts, the red lights; romance books filled the front window.
Retail is always dancing from holiday to holiday.
If money makes the world go round, so too does love. Love gave us the Trojan War, which gave us “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey.” In “Romeo and Juliet,” “Antony and Cleopatra,” and many others, Shakespeare mined love. Romance is the spine of much of literature, serious or not.
And love is being celebrated everywhere in the book world, and not just for Valentine’s Day, the third biggest holiday for spending. This year, sitting down with our reps from the various publishers, it was hard to miss the burgeoning numbers of romance novels filling publishers’ lists.
Had I just missed this last year? Nope, you didn’t, answered one of my reps. There are lots more this year.
Romance and romantasy are the current backbone of almost all publisher offerings. If you are not familiar with romantasy, it’s defined as “a literary genre that combines romantic fiction with fantasy” (Collins English Dictionary). Often that fantasy includes supernatural beings and dragons. So many dragons!
The current lodestar for the genre is the phenomenally best-selling “Fourth Wing” series, whose most recent installment, “Onyx Storm,” sold more than 2 million copies in its first week of release, becoming the biggest adult title in two decades. In the series, Violet must become a dragon rider; Xaden, her commander, hates her (her mother sent his father to his death); a romantic tension between them develops; and there are dragons. “Fourth Wing” was followed by “Iron Flame,” which is now followed by the “Onyx Storm,” a publishing phenomenon. Just as for “Harry Potter,” there have been midnight parties for “Onyx Storm,” which is surrounded by a literary fever not seen since Harry first entered our lives.
The summer lists are full of romantasy, cousins of the “Fourth Wing” series. “The Knight and the Moth,” first in a duology by Rachel Gillig, is out this spring, and tells of a cloistered seer and a heretical knight who must join forces to fight the darkness.
“Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales,” by Heather Fawcett, is also arriving, the third installment in a series. Emily has been obsessed with faeries her whole life; now she finds herself their queen, racing to break a curse to save her fiancé Wendell’s kingdom.
Suzanne Collins brings us “Sunrise on the Reaping,” another prequel to “The Hunger Games,” set 24 years before the first book, returning to the world loved by book and film fans.
Traditional romance is well represented, too. You don’t always need dragons or a dystopian world to create a romantic spark.
Two favorites of a publishing friend are “If Not For My Baby” by Kate Golden and “Nothing Serious” by Emily J. Smith. Both follow story lines we might have seen before, though good writing makes them new. My friend found both excellent for a quick literary vacation to a safe place, away from everyday drama.
Ali Hazelwood has made her name writing about brainy women in science holding their own with male counterparts, though her newest books are more nuanced –– and a little darker. “Deep End” takes her characters, two competitive swimmers, into potentially dangerous sexual waters.
Carley Fortune of “This Summer Will Be Different” is back with “One Golden Summer.” Bound to be a bestseller, this book promises to catch the charm of a time when all things were possible; a return to a summer lake place allows Alice to find herself.
Looking for something more than a summer beach-read romance book? Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (“Half a Yellow Sun” and “Americanah”) is out with a new book, her first in 10 years. “Dream Count” follows four women, their passions, loves, and lives. It’s a widely anticipated return from a much-admired, awardwinning author.
There is no new Elin Hilderbrand this summer, but Emily Henry’s book “Great Big Beautiful Life” is out. It seems to be on everyone’s most-anticipated-books lists for 2025. In it, two writers, Alice and Hayden, are competing to tell the life story of the legendary Margaret Ives, once fodder for the tabloids, child of one of the country’s most storied and scandalous families. While Margaret plays games with them, their romantic tension escalates.
We’re awash with love stories this year, all of them ripe for you to take on a literary vacation –– as my publishing friend did –– whisking you away from the everyday into the world of romance and fantasy, far from blaring headlines, into worlds spilling with love, hope, danger, excitement, and possibilities. Perhaps that’s just what we need this year.
