Romantasy is everywhere these days. It is the genre in romance that, currently, dominates much of the best-seller list and the conversation around romance. (Honestly, the fact that Sarah Maas’ A Court of Rose and Thorns is STILL on the best-seller list is somewhat staggering.)
But besides that, it’s hard to see what the most popular genre might be. (And yes, we can go down a rabbit hole about genres/subgenres/subsubgenres.) Is it contemporary romance? Queer romance? (Is that a genre? No. But it is a way of thinking about what is popular? Yes.) Literary adaptations/inspirations?
At AAR, readers have long loved historical romance above most other genres. Is that still the case? What is your favorite genre? Why?
Hands down, contemporary romance, with romantic-suspense a close second. I don’t specifically seek out m/m pairings in my readings, but over the last couple of years, I see that the number of m/m romances I’ve read is far higher than the number of m/f. About a decade ago, I got burnt out on historical romances that were completely anachronistic on every level, and figured if I were simply reading contemporary romance in 19th-century dress, I might as well read contemporary romances in 21st-century dress. I still read the occasional historical (most recently, N.R. Walker’s THE MEN FROM ECHO CREEK, which I liked a little more than Caz did), but by-and-large, almost every romance I read is set in today’s world.
I used to read historicals almost exclusively – with a few romantic suspense titles thrown in here and there, and I read hardly any contemporary romance – it just didn’t work for me all that often.
Like DDD, I’m not enamoured of the direction HR has taken in recent years – 90% are nothing but wallpaper – but I’ve read a lot more contemporaries since I started reading m/m, because that’s overwhelmingly the main sub-genre. That said, there are only a few contemporary authors who work for me – there’s a lot of dross, as there is in any genre, with overly used tropes and repetitive storylines that bore me silly – I tend to go for “romance and” – mysteries, suspense, fantasy, something with an actual plot these days.
Historical (and specifically Regency) romance has my heart, but there just doesn’t seem to be as much of it coming out these days…not that I have any actual data on this, but all the big “buzzy” books, at least, seem to be contemporaries. And, as the other commenters have pointed out, a lot of the newer historicals seem to be very wallpaper-y, which I don’t mind occasionally, but I mostly like them to have a reasonably realistic historical grounding. So, I’m discerning about which authors I read, and I mainly read older/backlist titles.
That said, I do enjoy some of the buzzy contemporaries as well! And I like “romantasy” (though the term annoys me), but again I mostly read the older stuff. Like, give me Robin McKinley or Juliet Marillier all day, but I have no interest in Sarah Maas.
I’m open to different genres, epecially when there’s humor. I love witty banter with a little bit of snark.
Have you ever read any of Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark? She can be very funny.
I really liked her Gamemaker series but haven’t read any of her Immortal books yet. I will check them out!
You can read them in any order. The funniest one, to me, of the ones I’ve read, is Dark Desires After Dark.
Vampires, werewolves and zombies – I’m ready for it! Thank you.
Romances with humor are definitely one of my strongest preferences. I don’t limit that to rom-coms, since I have found humor in almost all sub-genres. My list of romances that I recommend as having humor is at http://www.ccrsdodona.org/markmuse/reading/romwhumorlist.html . PNR (I’m not sure about the newer romantasy label) is probably my next most important selector, since if feeds my lifelong taste for F&SF.
I see a lot of my old favorites on your list!
I only started getting back into romance heavily a couple of years ago during some major life changes. Prior to this, my romance reading was mainly classics and fanfiction. My tastes in general fiction extend to what I read in romance. I’ve been a big historical fiction reader since I was a kid, and I have an enthusiasm for older, often forgotten books that I guess extends from my love for libraries and archives. So older historicals make up most of what I read. I find them more immersive, complex, and surprising, and I generally find the writing more engaging. I don’t have any prior associations with the subgenre, and I have few limits on what I’m willing to try, so I still feel like I’m in a process of discovery. I’m also a heroine centric reader and for all of the supposedly regressive qualities of old school romance (some of which are valid), my favorite heroines, the ones I find most multifaceted and compelling, tend to come from older books.
I also like romantic suspense, but those tend to skew older as well. I’m not opposed to contemporary romance at all, but I just don’t like many of the current conventions. Most currently published HR and CR that I do read tends to be queer romance or otherwise has a premise or some other attribute that specifically appeals to me, whether that’s working class characters, well-done menage, an emphasis on disability, and so on. My favorite contemporary romance writer (who has stopped writing) is Cara McKenna, and I’ve found very little that compares to her.
As for fantasy, I’ve never been much of a sci-fi/fantasy reader, but I’m an outlier among my friends. Most of them are voracious romantasy readers. I’m always hearing a lot about the fae!
She was great! And such a lovely person!
I find them more immersive, complex, and surprising, and I generally find the writing more engaging.
These are the qualities that I look for as well, whatever I read. Today, I’m not sure sure I have a subgenre favorite, as a result.
When I started reading romances, I began with historicals (Heyer, Chase, Balogh, Garwood and many others). They were at the top of everyone’s “best of” lists, and there were a lot of really great titles to choose from. The books were long enough to be immersive, complex and surprising despite relatively simple character types. Really excellent CR titles seemed few and far between for me. There were exceptions: Kristin Higgins, Julie James, Pamela Morsi, Carr’s Virgin River. But most of the big name CR writers on those “best of” lists felt formulaic and flat by comparison; and most of the RS I tried put characters in the TSTL category (for me).
Then, (as mentioned elsewhere in this thread) I got caught up in popular paranormal romances and urban fantasy (Patricia Briggs, Kelly Armstrong, JR Ward, Laurel K Hamilton, Kim Harrison, Charlaine Harris, among others). The attraction for me was the diversity of characters (who can love who) and attitudes about sexuality (they could be far less rigid and puritanical than mainstream m/f romances). IMHO, they laid the groundwork for (mostly small specialty press and self-publiched) authors to break through to mainstream romance readers with fully-realized LGBTQ+ and/or racially diverse characters and MCs who deserved and got their HEAs. I read far more CR and RS today than I ever expected to, given where those genres were in the mid-2000s. But when I look at books that have my highest ratings in recent years, they are all over the genre categories.
@Angela: Cara McKenna (along with Anne Calhoun) is the romance writer I miss the most. I always hoped McKenna would write a second book about Erin & Kelly from AFTER HOURS (similar to how she told the story of Laurel & Flynn in WILLING VICTIM & BRUTAL GAME), but alas it was not to be. You may already be aware of this, but McKenna also published several books under the name Meg Maguire for the sadly no-longer-around Harlequin Blaze line.
Anne Calhoun was amazing. I so wish she were still writing.
I would still like to know more about Anne Calhoun’s decision to stop writing. She was amazingly prolific from 2010 (LIBERATING LACEY) to 2017 (TURN ME LOOSE), producing incredibly well-written novels, novellas, and short stories at an amazing clip, and then..complete radio silence. It appeared that Calhoun was setting up two supporting characters in TURN ME LOOSE for their own story, but then she shut down her social media and released nothing else. At this point, I’m not expecting her to publish anything further, but I’d like to know that she’s doing ok.
She is doing well. She has a new career and seems content.
I’m glad to hear that. Thank you.
I think it is odd how “paranormal” romance has become “romantasy” . . . all my reader friends who seem to be into these (dark) romantasy titles have glossed right over the shelves and shelves of “paranormal” titles/authors of a few years ago. It seems to be somewhat of a generational divide, with paper-based book readers of paranormal romance on one side and younger Kindle Unlimited/insta/tiktok readers on the other. I went through a big paranormal phase when I first started reading romance in the 00s, but I’ve abandoned it mostly because the newer stuff has gotten so dark sounding. It does not appeal. I wonder if all the current romantasy fans will “discover” all those backlist titles/authors at some point, or if they are perceived to be just too “sweet” or “light” for their taste?
Well, the Maas has been around for a long time and the kiddos are gobbling that up so maybe?
Romcoms are my favourite so I will read a book that gives me the feels and makes me laugh whatever the setting.
I’ve read SF and Fantasy my entire life, so they would be my second favourite if only there were more good examples in them, as there aren’t HR is closer to them than CR so that is what I mainly read.
Historical romance, romantic suspense and mystery/thriller in that order. I do read a ton of contemporaries but the vast majority are skimworthy at best, Cara McKenna and Anne Calhoun are notable exceptions. Never been a fan of romantasy or fantasy romance, even though i actually do quite like scifi and some fantasy without the romance. I guess the part of my brain I engage when trying to remember that Borwain of the Rheinwish comes from the land of Tarim is fundamentally different from the part that’s engaged when I read historical fiction or romance.
It’s still mainly historicals for me, though not the wallpaper ones. I’m old enough so that, frankly, the manners and mores of the 19th century are more familiar to me than those of the 21st century. (And I do like the clothes.)
I read romance the most currently. But I’m still a big fan of espionage thrillers (Daniel Silva), Historical Fiction (Robert Harris, C.J. Sansom), and fantasy (Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson).