Fantasy stories with a strong romance that aren’t romance novels? Well written action is a huge plus.

I’m kind of in a weird middle ground – what I’m looking for is basically in the title but to give some more detail:

1) I don’t want a super slow burn – If it’s a trilogy and they kiss in the last third of the last book, that ain’t it. I don’t love will-they-won’t-they for a very long time. I want them to get together early enough that I actually get to watch them like, do shit together. Ideally, a lot of shit. Like in a perfect world, they’re together for 80% of the series, not 30%. That said, I’m also willing to slog through some shit for a really good romance. This one isn’t a hard requirement as long as the payoff is big.

2) I really enjoy power couples – they don’t need to be good at the same thing, but it’s really a lot more fun if they’re both good at something, and both of their talents are relevant all the time, not just like, “she’s got the magic ability to do Special Thing That Nobody Else Can Do and it’s vitally important exactly one time per book! See! She’s a real person. Honest.” A lot of novels make one character relevant constantly and the other character relevant for some weird edge case bullshit just to have a moment that’s relevant. Meh.

3) I don’t really need the sex scenes but I’m willing to skip over them or slog through them if the book otherwise checks all the boxes. Likewise, I don’t mind a lot of male or female gaze-y stuff – either is fine. Well written is important to me – a lot of “male” harem/romance novels fall completely flat here by just, well, being written at an eighth grade level? It’s a pain in the ass.

4) Pure romance novels are too formulaic to work for me. The restrictions of the format are just too stringent. I’ve read enough of them by this point that I’m just like.. not surprised at all, ever. I find myself going “OK we’re in this section of the book” and then skipping forward 3 chapters or bouncing around because I can tell exactly where in the book I am.

If you’re thinking “oh I want to read some stuff like this too!” here’s some stuff that works for me:

Essentially anything by Ilona Andrews – you really can’t fuck up too badly with them. There will be exactly one sex scene per book, the couple will get together at the 70% mark, but they’ll be stuck together the whole fucking book and everyone but them will know they’re getting married after 2 minutes together.

Essentially anything by Bruce Sentar – This is the male-gaze equivilant of Ilona Andrews. Very slightly worse writing, usually more like 2 or 3 sex scenes to skip per book, and always a harem, but the harem is usually populated by people who have like, some amount of personality, and the book isn’t written with the clear intent to avoid any words with a high letter count the way a lot of male harem novels are.

My Daughter is the Final Boss – for a non-book example.

Dresden Files came close a couple times but has a bad habit of fridge-ing any female character Dresden actually likes who might be available to him in any way. That said, if it had like 20% more romance and 20% less weird gross male-gaze-y stuff going on, it would be the perfect series.

The Wheel of Time had several really strong romances I liked (particularly Mat and Tuon) but the entire series is such an incredibly slow burn that it’s painful even on the reread. This is kind of how a lot of really good traditional fantasy series are – eight books of “oh boy oh boy they have chemistry” and 60 pages at the back end of “wow they kissed in the very last pov chapter they get. Nice.”

The Scholomance series by Naomi Novik – Kinda breaks the rules a bit in that it’s a little slow burn-y, but the chemistry is there from minute one and the narration is so fucking brilliant it’s hard to be too judge-y.

That should give you sort of the range of what I’m looking for, I hope?

by MaybeAThrowawayy