Magical assassins? Enemies-to-lovers? Souls bound by destiny? Romantasy has got it all!
The team at Mildenhall Library share some of their favourite riveting Romantasy novels. Browse our staff picks and pick up a copy from your local library!
Want more suggested books? Take a look at our recommendations or explore more of the National Year of Reading campaign.
Swordheart
T. Kingfisher
Halla has unexpectedly inherited the estate of a wealthy uncle. Unfortunately, she is also saddled with money-hungry relatives full of devious plans for how to wrest the inheritance away from her.
While locked in her bedroom, Halla inspects the ancient sword that’s been collecting dust on the wall since before she moved in. Out of desperation, she unsheathes it – and suddenly a man appears. His name is Sarkis, he tells her, and he is an immortal warrior trapped in a prison of enchanted steel.
Sarkis is sworn to protect whoever wields the sword, and for Halla – a most unusual wielder – he finds himself fending off not grand armies and deadly assassins but instead everything from kindly-seeming bandits to roving inquisitors to her own in-laws.
But as Halla and Sarkis grow closer, they overlook the biggest threat of all – the sword itself.
The Knight and the Moth
Rachel Gillig
Sybil Delling has spent nine years dreaming of having no dreams at all.
Like the other foundling girls who traded a decade of service for a home in the great cathedral, Sybil is a Diviner. In her dreams she receives visions from six unearthly figures known as Omens. From them, she can predict terrible things before they occur, and lords and common folk alike travel across the kingdom of Traum’s windswept moors to learn their futures by her dreams.
Just as she and her sister Diviners near the end of their service, a mysterious knight arrives at the cathedral. Rude, heretical, and devilishly handsome, the knight Rodrick has no respect for Sybil’s visions. But when Sybil’s fellow Diviners begin to vanish one by one, she has no choice but to seek his help in finding them.
For the world outside the cathedral’s cloister is wrought with peril. Only the gods have the answers she is seeking.
A Shadow in the Ember
Jennifer Armentrout
Born shrouded in the veil of the Primals, a Maiden as the Fates promised, Seraphena Mierel’s future has never been hers. Chosen before birth to uphold the desperate deal her ancestor struck to save his people, Sera must leave behind her life and offer herself to the Primal of Death as his Consort.
However, Sera’s real destiny is the most closely guarded secret in all of Lasania – she’s not the well protected Maiden but an assassin with one mission – one target. Make the Primal of Death fall in love, become his weakness, and then end him. If she fails, she dooms her kingdom to a slow demise at the hands of the Rot.
Sera has always known what she is. Chosen. Consort. Assassin. Weapon. A specter never fully formed yet drenched in blood. A monster. Until him. Until the Primal of Death’s unexpected words and deeds chase away the darkness gathering inside her.
Whispers in the Deep
Emma Hamm
One of the many engineers that keeps Beta, the city under the sea, running, Mira only wants to make her family proud and to prove herself worthy. She knows the mysterious city better than anyone and it’s her dream to help it flourish.
But then, on a solo job in an abandoned section of the city, she encounters a monster of legend. An undine. A dangerous merman from an ancient civilization, long forgotten.
Arges has fought his entire life for his people. With deadly creatures under his control, he plans to eradicate Beta once and for all to protect his kind and their peaceful way of life. But when a human woman saves him, she unknowingly creates a bond between them, one he can’t ignore. Even though her flaming red hair haunts his dreams, he needs her for information on the undine’s enemies.
So he steals her. Keeps her. Feeds her. Only to realize their bond is far deeper than captor and captive. He cannot let her go—but he cannot keep her under the sea. In a battle to determine if love can survive a war beneath the waves, it will be their decision that changes the tides.
Sorcery and Small Magics
Maiga Doocy
Leovander Loveage is a master of small magics, content to spend his days thinking up charms that can summon butterflies or turn hair pink. That is, until a mishap with forbidden magic compels Leo to obey his longtime rival, Sebastian Grimm. Grimm is Leo’s complete opposite – respected, talented and an absolutely insufferable curmudgeon. They need a counterspell, and fast.
Chasing rumours of a powerful sorcerer, Leo and Grimm enter the Unquiet Wood, a forest teeming with murderous monsters and dangerous outlaws. To break the curse, they’ll have to uncover the true depths of Leo’s magic, set aside their animosity and – much to their horror – work together. Even as an odd spark of attraction flares between them.
The Serpent and the Wings of Night
Carissa Broadbent
The adopted human daughter of the Nightborn vampire king, Oraya carved her place in a world designed to kill her. Her only chance to become something more than prey is entering the Kejari: a legendary tournament held by the goddess of death herself.
But winning won’t be easy against the most vicious warriors from all three vampire houses. To survive, Oraya is forced to make an alliance with a mysterious rival. Everything about Raihn is dangerous. He is a ruthless vampire, an efficient killer, an enemy to her father’s crown – and her greatest competition. Yet, what terrifies Oraya most of all is that she finds herself oddly drawn to him. But there’s no room for compassion in the Kejari.
War for the House of Night brews, shattering everything that Oraya thought she knew about her home. And Raihn may understand her more than anyone – but their blossoming attraction could be her downfall.
The Jasad Heir
Sara Hashem
At 10 years old, the Heir of Jasad flees a massacre that takes her entire family. At 15, she buries her first body. At 20, the clock is ticking on Sylvia’s third attempt at home. Nizahl’s armies have laid waste to Jasad and banned magic across the four remaining kingdoms.
Fortunately, Sylvia’s magic is as good at playing dead as she is. When the Nizahl Heir tracks a group of Jasadis to Sylvia’s village, the quiet life she’s crafted unravels. Calculating and cold, Arin’s tactical brilliance is surpassed only by his hatred for magic.
When a mistake exposes Sylvia’s magic, Arin offers her an escape: compete as Nizahl’s Champion in the Alcalah tournament and win immunity from persecution. In exchange, Arin will use her as bait to draw out the Jasadis he’s hunting. To win the deadly Alcalah, Sylvia must work with Arin to free her trapped magic, all while staying a step ahead of his efforts to uncover her identity.
A Fate Inked in Blood
Danielle Jensen
Bound in an unwanted marriage, Freya spends her days gutting fish, but dreams of becoming a warrior. And of putting an axe in her boorish husband’s back.
Freya’s dreams abruptly become reality when her husband betrays her to the region’s jarl, landing her in a fight to the death against his son. To survive, Freya is forced to reveal her deepest secret: she possesses a drop of a goddess’s blood, which gives her magic capable of repelling any attack.
A magic that was foretold would unite the fractured nation of Skaland beneath a king-the one who controls the shield maiden’s fate. Believing he’s destined to rule Skaland, the fanatical jarl binds Freya with a blood oath and orders his son, Bjorn, to protect Freya from their enemies.
Desperate to prove her strength, Freya must train to fight and learn to control her magic, all while facing perilous tests set by the gods.
When the Moon Hatched
Sarah A. Parker
As an assassin for the rebellion, Raeve’s job is to complete orders and never get caught. When a rival bounty hunter shatters her world, Raeve finds herself captured by the Guild of Nobles – a group of powerful fae.
Crushed by the loss of his great love, dragon rider Kaan Vaegor took the head of a king and donned his melted crown. Now on a tireless quest to quell the never-ebbing ache in his chest, a clue lures him into the capital’s high-security prison where he stumbles upon the imprisoned Raeve.
Together, they seek truths that threaten to unravel everything they knew about their world – and each other.
Quicksilver
Callie Hart
In the land of the unforgiving desert, there isn’t much a girl wouldn’t do for a glass of water. 24-year-old Saeris Fane is good at keeping secrets. No one knows about the strange powers she possesses, or the fact that she has been picking pockets and stealing from the Undying Queen’s reservoirs for as long as she can remember.
But a secret is like a knot. Sooner or later, it is bound to come undone. When Saeris comes face-to-face with Death himself, she inadvertently reopens a gateway between realms and is transported to a land of ice and snow.
The Fae have always been the stuff of myth, of legend, of nightmares – but it turns out they’re real, and Saeris has landed herself right in the middle of a centuries-long conflict that might just get her killed.