Romantasy has taken over the Booktok space and we are hopping in to recommend your next romantasy read. From favourite authors to new-to-the-scene authors we think you should read, there is a book for everyone!
Your Next Favourite Fantasy Read
Katabasis
9780008501877 | HarperVoyager | TPB
R.F. Kuang
Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek. The story of a hero’s descent to the underworld.
Grad student Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become the brightest mind in the field of analytic magick.
But the only person who can make her dream come true is dead and – inconveniently – in Hell. And Alice, along with her biggest rival Peter Murdoch, is going after him.
But Hell is not as the philosophers claim, its rules are upside-down, and if she’s going to get out of there alive, she and Peter will have to work together.
That’s if they can agree on anything.
Will they triumph, or kill each other trying?
2025’s most unexpected love story is going to be hell in the new novel by Sunday Times Number One Bestseller R.F. Kuang. Coming August 2025.
Arcana Academy
9781399728898 | Hodderscape | TPB
Elise Kova
✨ Are you ready to claim your destiny? ✨
A woman who wields magical tarot cards lands herself in a false engagement with the headmaster of a mysterious academy in this first installment of an enthralling romantic fantasy series from the bestselling author of A Deal with the Elf King.
Clara Graysword has survived the underworld of Eclipse City through thievery, luck, and a whole lot of illegal magic. After a job goes awry, Clara is sentenced to a lifetime in prison for inking tarot cards-a rare power reserved for practitioners at the elite Arcana Academy.
Just when it seems her luck has run dry, the academy’s enigmatic headmaster, Prince Kaelis, offers her an escape-for a price. Kaelis believes that Clara is the perfect tool to help him steal a tarot card from the king and use it to re-create an all-powerful card long lost to time.
In order to conceal her identity and keep her close, Kaelis brings Clara to Arcana Academy, introducing her as the newest first-year student and his bride-to-be.
Thrust into a world of arcane magic and royal intrigue, where one misstep will send her back to prison or worse, Clara finds that the prince she swore to hate may not be what he seems. But can she risk giving him power over the world-and her heart? Or will she take it for herself?
The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy
9780356524740 | Orbit | TPB
Brigitte Knightley
A slow burn, enemies-to-lovers romantasy featuring a scholarly healer and a gentleman assassin, set in an exquisite fantasy world, perfect for fans of The Love Hypothesis and Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries.
Osric Mordaunt, member of the Fyren Order of assassins, is in dire need of healing. Naturally – such is the grim comedy of fate – the only healer who can help is Aurienne Fairhrim, preeminent scientist, bastion of moral good, and member of an enemy Order.
Aurienne is desperate for funding to heal the sick – so desperate that, when Osric bribes her to help him, she accepts, even if she detests him and everything he stands for.
A forced collaboration ensues: the brilliant Woman in STEM is coerced into working with the PhD in Murders, much to Aurienne’s disgust. As Osric and Aurienne work together to heal his illness and investigate the mysterious reoccurrence of a deadly pox, they find themselves ardently denying their attraction, which only fuels the heat between them.
The Nightblood Prince
9781399630221 | Gollancz | PBO
Molly X. Chan
In late-21st-century Australia, Tao-Yi and her partner Navin spend most of their time inside an immersive, consumerist virtual reality called Gaia. They log on, go to work, socialise and even eat in this digital utopia. Meanwhile, their aging bodies lie suspended in pods inside cramped apartments.
Across the city, in the abandoned real world, Tao-Yi’s mother remains stubbornly offline, dwindling away between hospital visits and memories of her earlier life in Malaysia.
When a new technology is developed to permanently upload a human brain to Gaia, Tao-Yi must decide what is most important: a digital future or an authentic past.
Stunning and spellbinding, Every Version of You unpicks the ties between life and technology to ask what truly makes us human, and what in our world is worth preserving. Perfect for fans of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.Two princes. One prophecy. A fate she cannot outrun.
The night Fei was born, a prophecy was made: she would one day become the Empress of All Empresses.
Torn from her family as a child and raised in the palace to one day marry the Crown Prince of the most powerful empire in the land, Fei has only ever known loneliness. When the opportunity arises to seize her own destiny for the first time in her life, Fei sets out to hunt a legendary tiger, knowing it might cost her everything. What she doesn’t expect is to fall under the mercy of Yexue, the beautiful runaway prince from a rival kingdom. Blessed by the night, harbouring a dangerous magic, and capable of commanding an army of deadly vampires, Yexue could be the key to Fei gaining more than just her freedom.
But to outrun destiny, Fei must spark a wave of events that will change the world as she knows it. Torn between two princes and plagued by nightmares of bloodshed, she finds that the stars might be more inescapable – and more irresistible – than she ever considered before . . .
Two kingdoms on the brink of battle. One prophesied empress to unite them, who finds herself caught between two princes and the fact that love alone may not stop the coming war. A thrilling YA romantasy from the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods. Your new obsession starts here!
Rose in Chains
9780008711689 | HarperVoyager: Magpie | TPB
Julie Soto
The war is over, the dark forces have won, and the hero who was supposed to save them is dead.
Captured as her castle is overrun by the enemy, Princess Briony Rosewood is stripped of her magic and auctioned off to the highest bidder.
She’s sold to Toven Hearst: scion of a family known for their cruel control of magic – and her long-time, and unresolved, infatuation. Yet despite the horrors of her new world and the role she must learn to play within it, all is not lost.
Help – and hope – may yet arise in the most unlikely of places…
New York Times bestselling author Julie Soto crafts a lush romantic fantasy that’s filled with intrigue, magic, and an irresistible enemies-to-lovers romance.
A Broken Blade
9781529447996 | Arcadia | BPB
Melissa Blair
My body is made of scars,
some were done to me,
but most I did to myself.
Keera is a killer. As the King’s Blade, she is the most talented spy in the kingdom. And the king’s favoured assassin. When a mysterious figure moves against the Crown, Keera is called upon to hunt down the so-called Shadow. She tracks her target into the magical lands of the Fae, but Faeland is not what it seems . . . and neither is the Shadow. Keera is shocked by what she learns, and can’t help but wonder who her enemy truly is: the King that destroyed her people or the Shadow that threatens the peace?
As she searches for answers, Keera is haunted by a promise she made long ago, one that will test her in every way. To keep her word, Keera must not only save herself, but an entire kingdom.
Fans of fast-paced high fantasy such as A Court of Thorns and Roses series and Six of Crows will enjoy the fierce female characters, sapphic representation, and fantasy romance of A Broken Blade.
In The Veins of the Drowning
9781399632096 | Gollancz | PBO
Kalie Cassidy
The monster is always slain…
Imogen Nel is in hiding. Hiding from a cruel kingdom that believes Sirens are monstrous, blood-hungry creatures. Hiding from a king and his captain who viciously hunt her kind. Hiding from her own alluring abilities. By keeping herself from the sea, Imogen’s bloodlust is dulled, and her black wings remain hidden beneath her skin.
When a neighbouring king comes to visit, Imogen can no longer hide. He knows precisely what she is, and he believes she is a lost Siren heiress who can save both their kingdoms from an even greater monster. But Imogen’s magic threatens to violently reveal itself, and the two form a blood bond that protects them both. They flee the kingdom together, traversing waters teeming with the undead. As the lines between duty to their people and desire for each other begin to blur, Imogen worries her own ancestral powers may not be enough to kill what hunts her-the only way to defeat a monster may be to become one herself.
The Fallen Kingdom
9781035917174 | Aria | BPB
Elizabeth May
Set in Victorian-era Scotland and filled to the brim with fae, this is historical romantasy adventure will sweep you away
Rise from the ashes. Rewrite fate. End the war.
The dead don’t stay buried. Not when ancient magic is involved.
Aileana Kameron claws free from her grave to find the world unraveling. Tick tock. The clock’s winding down.
Only one relic can hold back the tide of destruction, a book hidden deep in hostile fae territory. Guarded by the Morrigan, the oldest, deadliest creature in existence.
Aileana has one chance to save humanity and the fae she loves: Kiaran MacKay, once her consort, now a king damned to insatiable hunger.
This is no fairytale quest. It’s life or death, with the fate of their worlds in the balance. If they fail, it’s over. Their lives. The realms. Everything.
Packed with immersive detail, action, romance, and fae lore, The Fallen Kingdom brings the Falconer’s story to an epic and unforgettable conclusion.
Fateless
9780008737467 | HQ | TPB
Julie Kagawa
Steal your Fate. Unravel your destiny.
Perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo, Laini Taylor and Sarah J. Maas, this new fantasy trilogy from Sunday Times bestselling author Julie Kagawa will sweep readers into a bold and exciting new world, where a twisted game of destiny has far-reaching consequences.
The Hourglass of Time waits for no one. Not even the Deathless Kings can turn back the sands once they have fallen.
Seventeen-year-old Sparrow has no family other than the Thieves Guild. They found her, an orphan on the streets of Kovass, and gave her a home, training, and a purpose. Ever since, Sparrow’s sole focus has been proving herself to the guild.
But the guild and the mysterious Circle that controls them are more than simple criminals. They work to bring back the reign of the Deathless Kings, the godlike sorcerers who once ruled over the world. In Sparrow they believe they have found the key to turning back the sands of time.
Betrayed by those closest to her, Sparrow must turn to Raithe – the enigmatic yet alluring assassin sent to eliminate her – to escape the Guild’s shadowy plots. What ensues is a death-defying adventure that takes Sparrow far from home, across the Dust Sea, and into the trackless desert where she will discover that it’s not only her own fate that rests in her hands – but also the fate of the world entire.
A Forbidden Alchemy
9781398546912 | Simon & Schuster UK | TPB
Stacey McEwan
Australian BookTok star Stacey McEwan’s stunning new slow-burn romantasy duology traces a fated pair who stumble upon a world-changing secret in youth and are catapulted into a violent class war in adulthood, finding each other amidst love, loss and devasting betrayals.
Nina Harrow and Patrick Colson are only twelve years old when they are whisked from their disenfranchised mining towns to dazzling Belavere City to test for magical abilities. Nina’s lifelong dream is to become an Artisan, a powerful elemental mage who fulfills the city’s grand ambitions, while Patrick wants only to reunite with his family of Craftsmen in the mines.
But together, they discover a devastating secret: Artisans aren’t born, they’re chosen.
With this information, they part ways. Patrick returns home, while Nina finds her place as one of the rarest, most coveted types of Artisan.
When a Craftsman revolution ignites years later, Nina is captured by Patrick’s rebel group – and he hasn’t forgotten her. In fact, he needs her help for a mission that could shift the tides against Belavere City. She reluctantly agrees to aid him, battling the sparks between them. But when Nina’s first love reappears, asking her to betray Patrick for the Artisans, she faces an impossible choice that will determine the fate of their world.
