Fantasy romance existed long before BookTok. The key to enjoying this genre is finding the specific combination of magical lore, a brooding daddy type, and spiciness that most speaks to you as a reader. Happily, romantasy offers a broad selection of options. Here are some of the most popular creators of sexy fantasy worlds.
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Anne McCaffrey
Known for: “Dragonriders of Pern†(1967–2012), about a planet where people have a unique mental bond with dragons, whose fire protects human settlements from a destructive locust-like swarm called threads. The dragons’ elaborate mating rituals spark similar lusty feelings between their riders.
Creatures: Dragons.
Smut factor: Maybe you weren’t ready to have sex with this guy you were inevitably destined for, but both of your dragons are getting it on! This can, at times, get a little rape-y. Generally, the narration cuts off right as the dragons get down to it.
Writing sample:
The mating passion of the two dragons at that moment spiraled wide to include Lessa. A tidal wave rising relentlessly from the sea of her soul flooded Lessa. With a longing cry she clung to F’lar. She felt his body rock-firm against hers, his hard arms lifting her up, his mouth fastening mercilessly on hers as she drowned deep in another unexpected flood of desire.
— Dragonflight (1968)
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Marion Zimmer Bradley
Known for: Mists of Avalon (1983), a retelling of the Arthurian legend from the perspective of its women, mainly Morgan le Fay, a.k.a. Morgaine, a witch who gets tricked into a pagan ritual with her half-brother, the future King Arthur, and gets pregnant.
Creature: Witch.
Smut factor: While it includes cave sex and a royal threesome, Mists of Avalon is overall on the chaster side by contemporary standards — lots of taking a lover into one’s arms that leaves room for imagination.
Controversies: In 2014, 15 years after Bradley’s death, her daughter, Moira Greyland, accused her of serial sexual abuse. Turns out Bradley’s ex-husband Walter Breen was a convicted pedophile who died in prison.
Writing sample:
He undid her clothing. She had grown used to the cold — it did not matter to her that it was cold on the grass here, that she was naked under his body. She touched him; he was warm, his body warm, his strong male member hot and strong, his hands opening her thighs were strong and eager. Her whole body welcomed him as hungrily as a virgin; she moved with him and she felt the rhythm of the pulsing tides of the earth around her.
— Mists of Avalon (1983)
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Diana Gabaldon
Known for: “Outlander†(1991–present), in which a married WWII nurse time-travels to 18th-century Scotland and must marry a brawny Highlander for her own protection.
Creatures: None here — just some rocks scattered around the world that transport humans into the past.
Smut factor: Our romantic leads get a real kick out of pleasuring each other with regularity. A healthy, vanilla sex life!
Writing sample:
“And then,†he said, interrupting, “since ye will, according to the plan, be naked, and — provided I’ve done it right so far — possibly willing as well —â€
“Oh, just possibly,†I said. My lips were still tingling from step one.
“— then I shall spread open your thighs, take down my breeks, and —†He paused, waiting.
“And?†I said, obligingly.
The grin widened substantially.
“And we’ll see what sort of noise it is ye don’t make then, Sassenach.†— Voyager (1993)
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Jacqueline Carey
Known for: “Kushiel’s Universe†(2001–present), in which protagonist Phèdre is born with the mark of the deity Kushiel, fating her to a life of pleasure and pain forever entwined.
Creatures: Descendents of angels who dabble in magic and view sex as a religious act.
Smut factor: Full-on BDSM fantasy: whips, chains, upside down, upside down in chains, degradation — you name it.
Writing sample:
“May your patrons have the joy of breaking you,†he murmured. “I’ve no interest in it. But I’ve taken a fee to ensure you’ll not go to them in complete ignorance. Come here.â€
He beckoned me to a cabinet and began pointing out items.
“We provide all manner of accessories, of course; collars, blinds, gags, belts, whatever the patron might wish. Rings, pleasure-balls, aides d’amour, pincers —â€
“I was raised in Cereus House,†I reminded him, wondering if he thought I was so green I’d never seen a shaft-ring or a carven phallus. — Kushiel’s Dart (2001)
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Cassandra Clare
Known for: “The Shadowhunter Chronicles,†including “The Mortal Instruments†(2007–14) and “The Dark Artifices†(2016–18), about Emma Carstairs’s fiery forbidden romance with “sex god†Julian Blackthorn. (The pair are “parabatai,†or bonded fighting partners, a sacred relationship which prohibits romance.)
Creatures: Angel descendents — the titular Shadowhunters — who ally with “Downworlders,†including faeries, warlocks, werewolves, and vampires, to protect the mundanes (mortals) from demons.
Smut factor: There’s mainly kissing in the early novels, but sex is crucial to the spinoffs; Clare also releases extended-cut sex scenes on her blog.
Controversies: Clare’s been fighting plagiarism charges since 2001, when she got kicked off FanFiction.net for the similarities between her Draco Malfoy series and The Hidden Land, a 1986 book written by Pamela Dean.
Writing sample:
When the world had gone white behind her eyes several times, he rose up over her and brushed her damp hair away from her face. “Now,†he whispered, and covered her mouth with his own as he joined their bodies together.â€
— Queen of Air and Darkness (2018)
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Sarah J. Maas
Known for: “A Court of Thorns and Roses†(2015–present), about a human named Feyre whisked away to the faerie lands of Prythian after accidentally killing a faerie in the guise of a wolf.
Creature: Faeries
Smut factor: What seems to be the setup for a vanilla sex life with a perfectly bland, overbearing faerie lord instead becomes the groundwork for absolutely mind-blowing aerial sex with an enemy-to-lover who connects with Feyre on a level that’s so much more than just physical. But it’s also very physical.
Controversies: Maas has been accused of being problematic in every conceivable way, including, but not limited to: gender dynamics being both too retrograde and too girlbossy, age gaps, racial stereotypes about particular fae communities with darker skin types, lack of queer representation, and killing off a non-white character to save the white protagonist.
Writing sample:
I bowed off the table as my climax shattered through me, splintering my consciousness into a million pieces. He kept licking me, fingers still moving. “Rhys,†I rasped. Now. I wanted him now. But he remained kneeling, feasting on me, that hand pinning me to the table.
— A Court of Mist and Fury (2016)
Read about how Sarah J. Maas’s books became so popular here.
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Danielle L. Jensen
Known for: “The Bridge Kingdom†(2018–present), “Malediction†(2014–17), and “Dark Shores†(2019–24), all of which explore palace intrigue and political conflicts through alternating perspectives between two people who don’t initially like each other but eventually discover they very much want to have sex.
Creatures: Witches, Norse/seafaring gods.
Smut factor: Most of the early books in each series have one or two sex scenes and then everything ramps up by book three or four. (The Inadequate Heir, the third installment in “The Bridge Kingdom,†finds plenty of opportunity to use the word “cock.â€) Many men initially seen as enemies, or at least assholes, turn out to be very, very hot.
Writing sample:
“I love you,†he said, his lips grazing against hers. “And I will love you, no matter what the future brings. No matter how hard I need to fight. I will always love you.â€
The words undid her, broke her apart completely, then forged her into something new. Something stronger. Something better.
— The Bridge Kingdom (2018)
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Jennifer L. Armentrout
Known for: “Blood and Ash†(2020–present), about Poppy, who rebels against her destiny to serve the gods as a virgin when she falls for a man tasked with protecting her. Together, Poppy and her love interest go on a quest to overthrow the “Ascended†— vampires, basically — who seek to feed on and enslave mortals.
Creatures: Vampires, werewolves, and sorcerers.
Smut factor: Consistently tops lists as the smuttiest of these franchises.
Controversies: Like more than one author in this space, Armentrout loves to describe some characters as “tawny,†leading to accusations that she’s trying to be inclusive while also dodging issues of race. The male lead also proceeds in sexual circumstances with dubious consent.
Writing sample:
Something about his features softened even though stark need shone through the thin slits of his eyes. “Just move.†His hands went to my hips. He lifted me up a few inches and brought me back down. A deep sound radiated from him. “Like that. You can’t do anything wrong. How have you not learned that yet?â€
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but I mirrored his movement, moving up and down as snow fell across his shirt. My palm slipped, angling me forward. A spot deep in me was touched, sending out bolts of intense pleasure in waves.
“Like that?†I breathed.
His hands tightened on my hips. “Just like that.â€
— From Blood and Ash (2020)
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Scarlett St. Clair
Known for: The “Hades x Persephone†saga (2019–present), a contemporary retelling of the relationship between the goddess of spring (a journalism student trying to blend in among the mortals of New Athens) and the god of the underworld (a nightclub owner who profits off making deals with mortals).
Creatures: Greek gods.
Smut factor: Reads like Greek-mythology fan fiction — these two are endlessly horny for each other. There have been complaints of too much sex.
Writing sample:
“I see your sex life is vibrant.â€
Persephone stiffened and then narrowed her eyes. “How do you know that?â€
“I can smell it,†Aphrodite said. “Hades is all over you. Must have been a wild night. Makeup sex?â€
“That’s a horrific power,†Persephone said, and Aphrodite shrugged.
— A Touch of Ruin (2021)
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Naomi Novik
Known for: The Scholomance trilogy (2020–22), about a school for the magically inclined. Student Galadriel Higgins knows that she’s powerful but also that her powers only work well when she does heinously evil magic. The guy she most loathes, Orion, is a do-gooder Harry Potter type.
Creature: Maleficaria — gruesome demons who take on different forms and are intent on physically and mentally torturing students.
Smut factor: This franchise puts more emphasis on world-building and self-knowledge, so the sex scenes register as more tender than steamy. Watching Galadriel and Orion eventually admit they’re into each other is remarkably satisfying.
Controversies: Complaints of racist stereotypes, including a passage in which one of the school’s many nightmarish monsters are described as insectlike pests that live in students’ dreadlocks, which Novik vowed to remove from future editions.
Writing sample:
I stood up and let the dress fall the rest of the way off me. He stood up to meet me, and we got straight back to kissing while I unbuttoned his jeans and shoved them down off him, and then we stopped again to grab my dress and spread it out on a thick patch of grass in the sunlight, and we lay down together, and with his body against mine, so unbelievably warm and good, I said, gulping for air, “You absolute bastard, I could kill you,†because we could have been doing this, we could have been here together, in the sunlight and the grass and the world, instead of the horrors he’d put himself and me through.
— The Golden Enclaves (2022)
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Carissa Broadbent
Known for: “Crowns of Nyaxia†(2022–present), specifically The Serpent & the Wings of Night and The Ashes & the Star-Cursed King, in which Oraya, a human raised by vampires, tangles with Raihn, her vampire ally in the Kejari — a competition that grants the winner a wish from the vampire goddess Nyaxia.
Creatures: Vampires.
Smut factor: There’s a “Should I kill him or fuck him?†slow burn that pays off for an entire chapter.
Writing sample:
People did all kinds of nonsensical things when blinded by good sex. And Raihn looked like he was probably very good at sex …
— Serpent and the Wings of Night (2022)
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Rebecca Yarros
Known for: The “Empyrean†series (2023–present), about Violet, whose mother forces her to go to war college. She’s the weakest but bonds with the strongest dragon there. Also, she’s dating the son of her family’s sworn enemy, and her dragon is mated to his dragon.
Creature: Lotta dragons!
Smut factor: Violet and her enemy-to-lover don’t fuck often, but when they do, she makes lightning crack and fires start.
Writing sample:
Fuck, that feels good. Every touch of his mouth to my heated skin is flame to kindling, and I suck in a sharp breath when he lingers on a sensitive spot, taking his time. But then he stills again, his breath hot and wet against the side of my neck.
— Fourth Wing (2023)