Romantasy for people that hate romantasy
Books for people that crave romances but hate the mainstream romantasy trends, main characteristics required to fit this list: M/F pairings are completely fine, but they don't fit into a cisheteronormativy worldview (mostly, men and women aren't different species in these books) No weird and creepy possessiveness Characters that look like normal humans and not only thinstagram models They can find each other hot immediately but the romance has to be developed.
created by CoffeeWorld
last updated May, 2026
Comments
Reasons for including the books in this list:
A taste of gold and Iron: m/m romance, weak plot but very good world building, wonderful and realist build up of the romance after one of the protagonist starts by disliking the other.
T.Kingfisher's the paladins series: each book had different characteristics but sweet and kind male characters, female characters with body types that aren't just thin, good world building and a side plot connecting all of them
Empire of Sand: very sweet MMC
The knight and the moth: bi FMC with biceps so big the MMC can't wrap a hand around it, the MMC has crooked teeth, the pairing is very well balanced and there's no ridiculous cishet dynamic
One dark window: this is the most typical romantasy but I'm still including it because the MMC has a very big and hooked nose and we need more of that. Still not violently cishet anyway
If anyone has any recommendations I would so so so appreciate them, I need more romantasy books that don't annoy me so much that I can't even enjoy the silly romances 😭
I'm not entirely sure what a romantasy is🙈 Does it have to have explicit magic and/or fairytale creatures in a different world, or is it okay if it has fantastical elements in this world, like magic-esque but subtle? I'm thinking Brothers of the Wild North Sea by Harper Fox🤔
I looked it up and it looks too much on the historical side to be considered romantasy? But without reading it I guess I can't be totally sure 🤔
A friend just told me that, for them, a romantasy is a romantasy if you can take out the romance and have a solid fantasy book, so by that measure the book I mentioned is definitely not romantasy😅
Yeah that's a good definition! I've never thought about this much because before this year when I branched out a lot I used to only read fantasy (and the occasional historical fiction) so my brain too just took it as "usual fantasy but with more romance than others" 😂
