Hi r/fantasyromance, I'm Helen Scheuerer, the author of The Legends of Thezmarr and Kiss of the Black Flame, among other titles!

I'm currently working on Book 2 of my new series, The Bookbinder's Bargain—or I'm supposed to be—but here we are!

While I'm both equal parts nervous and excited to be doing this, please join me for my AMA (Tuesday, 6th October) from 3pm EST/7pm UTC/8am NZDT to chat books, writing, and everything in between.

Thanks so much to all of you and the mod team for having me here! I can't wait to chat ♥️

Ive been reading a lot of heavy stuff recently and NEED a good romance. Looking for something in the modern fantasy/supernatural realm, lots of yearning and tension, cool w either a monogamous or poly situation and also cool w hetero and queer relationships. I'd also really enjoy something with some public scenes!

TIA!

It's officially October, and between the new Dracula audio drama and rewatching Interview With the Vampire, I'm in the mood for some vampire romances!

With two additional requirements!

The first is that there should be no "neat" solution to the vampire's feeding habits. No blood substitute à-la True Blood. No drinking animals with no side effects à-la Twilight. Them being able to feed without killing people is fine, but I still want the story to grapple with the morality of that.

The second (which is pretty in line with the first) is that there should be some level of monstrosity to vampire existence that goes beyond "sexy blood-drinker". If one MC is human I want the vampire MC/LI to start out as a genuine danger to them, and as they fall in love I want their nature to be a real issue that needs to be addressed.

I hope this post make sense, thank you in advance for any and all recommendations!

Release date: October 20, 2026.

Note: If you haven't read {Smoke & Scar} or {Splintered Kingdom} yet, I would advise that you stop reading here. This is a review for the final installment of A Shattered Crown series and has minor spoilers for book two.

I want to preface this review of {Shadow and Son by Gretchen Powell Fox} by providing context on how I felt about the first two books, since my experience of the final installment of the series isn’t in a vacuum. Smoke and Scar is a book I widely recommend given how often people request books that subvert genre expectations. While the sequel Splintered Kingdom was a struggle for me due to the slow narrative progression and extended separation of Elyria and Cedric, I figured that this final installment would address most of my challenges with the 2nd book, and it does for the most part.

If you loved Splintered Kingdom, I highly recommend Shadow and Son. This book addresses and resolves four of my critiques from the sequel, one of which I will not discuss due to spoilers.

In the previous book, I was frustrated with the antagonist Lord Church feeling like a cartoon villain, but one of the highlights of this book for me was his character arc. He receives his own POV chapter that felt both true to him, while fleshing him out as person, warts and all. I never would have thought that the series could bring out feelings of sympathy towards him, but his arc was beautifully written. As an aside, I also want to make a shout out for Sid the shadow cat for being the MVP of book 3 while I’m recognizing stand out characters in this book.

I found that the previous book lacked the focus of Smoke and Scar and sometimes it felt meandering, but Shadow and Son felt more focused as it moved us towards the end game. There were some great battle sequences, which I feel Gretchen Powell Fox does well. This felt like a call back to the action in book one as they went through the trials.

Like its predecessor, there is more time devoted to Elyria and Cedric as a couple with increased spice. Book 2 took us from glimpses and kisses to open door spice, and this book took us home bumping up the spice to be explicit. The tone of the romance was a personal taste mismatch with me, but in case it’s a fit for you, I’d characterize the romance to be very sweet— a mouth full of cavities sweet, and at the worst of times, a little cheesy. “I love you” is mentioned no less than 18 times, and the leads describe each other as “perfect” ~14 times (the latter on par with book 2). The use of cutesy terms of endearment just wasn’t for me (Trouble, Sir Worrywart, Sir Sleepyhead, Sir Manners, Sir Knight). I found the frequent declarations of love by Cedric a bit over the top for my own taste; I prefer it demonstrated through actions over declarations in romance.

Another one of my issues with the 2nd book that got resolved in this book was Cedric’s naiveté. This book’s self awareness of it through the juxtaposition of Cedric making naive assumptions always followed by ribbing from other characters turned something frustrating to an inside joke for readers.

While I generally enjoy the author’s writing style, particularly in the cinematic, descriptive quality of how she writes about the manifestation of magic, sometimes I found myself skimming, when the story would go longer than necessary about something not important to the plot. There were some stylistic writing quirks during intense moments that were jarring for me like the repetition of a word 3 times for emphasis (e.g. [word], [word], [word]) and generous use of em dashes (e.g. 4 em dashes in one sentence). There were also redundant words and information shared (e.g. same information shared with very similar response in two different POV chapters of different characters) as well as repetition of certain words or phrases (e.g. “there was nothing” x9) that pulled me out of the story.

There were a handful of continuity issues that hopefully will get resolved by the time this is published. For example, objects already having been prepared for a specific ritual ready in Elyria’s tent, when moments earlier, her father was surprised that she was even entertaining the idea of doing said ritual so it was confusing that he apparently had the foresight to procure ritual objects. Another example would be Lord Church stating that thousands of nights had passed since he last spoke and yet it was only days/weeks ago when he spoke to Elyria when she was captive.

In the previous book, I noted that Kit felt less developed than the other characters. In this book, I felt like a reveal regarding Kit and another character felt surprising, since I didn’t pick up on its development at all. It looks like the book is setting us up for a future novella with Kit.

Should you read this book? If you loved the action sequences of Smoke and Scar and wished that it was spicier, then you should give this book a try so long as you don’t mind a romance that’s very sweet in nature. If you loved the second book, what are you waiting for?

1. Smoke and Scar ⭐ 4.5 | 🌶️ 1/5
2. Splintered Kingdom ⭐ 3.25 | 🌶️ 3/5
3. Shadow and Son ⭐ 3.5 | 🌶️ 4/5

CW: suicide ideation, graphic violence

This review is based on an ARC provided by Scarlett Press & the author.

Welcome to the biweekly diversity megathread! What are some featuring Asian protagonists or love interests you have read or that are on your radar?

We’d previously done a general BIPOC Main Characters Megathread but we’re also going to rotate megathreads to highlight and feature specific races for more recommendations!

Here is the link to the Megathread Wiki Page for a compilation of all the sub's megathreads! 

How to use Book Recommendation Megathreads: These megathreads are not meant to replace other recommendation posts on the same topic. As long as a particular trope or topic is not overly repetitive over a certain period of time, book requests that cover megathread topics are allowed! We then collect those posts to put them in the pinned comment below, so the most recent book recommendation discussions will always be gathered in this one post for future reference.

Megathread Postimage

I'm looking at you, Horseman 😉 💋😘

I believe Oct 6 (?) is the official release day for Keri Lake's Vasmora (Eating Woods 3) and I'm having trouble finding it listed anywhere. Has anyone seen it on sites BESIDES Amazon? Keri said the price was wrong on Amazon and I don't want to support that site. Has anyone seen it listed anywhere else?

I’m feeling real spooky with this season by falling headfirst into some monster loving!

All recs where the MMC’s or FMC is a monster, has different monster bits (if you know what I mean), or the story is heavily gothic and has monstrous themes count.

Everything goes in this recommendation category. MM, OV, MMFOVABC!

Only small caveat is no Layla Fae. It pains me because I loved her Jaga and the Devil Series and Prize for the King would be perfect for this, but she is a known out and proud AI user.

{A Vow of Blood and Tears by Cate Corvin} - the most mature forced proximity you’ll ever encounter. The MMC is a vampire beast. The book cover isn’t amazing but the book is!

{A Darkness so Sweet by Emma Hamm} - Orc king gets stuck accidentally marrying a florist! It’s sweet and fun.

{An Unseelie Duke by Kathryn Ann Kingsley} - a cooky Basilisk shifter fae shows up to make a deal for a soul. It’s fun, it’s part of a series. Not my favourite but fits the Monster Cocktober vibes

{Morning Glory Milking Farm by C.M Nacosta} - Ok this one is actually a cute romance if you’ll believe it. The FMC works at a sperm milking farm for Minotaurs. In this universe their sperm is used for viagra. There’s others in this series. They’re cute!

Hi Everyone!

I'm a wedding officiant who does custom wedding ceremonies, and I'm currently working with a couple who are having a high-fantasy elopement. They both want to incorporate traditions from their heritage into the ceremony but with a fantasy twist.

The bride is Puerto Rican, and while I know some PR/Caribbean traditions for “typical” weddings, I was wondering if anyone has recs for Caribbean authors who have wedding scenes in their books. If they incorporated real-life traditions, I would love to see how they did it in a fantasy setting!

The ceremony itself is going to be very magical/magickal, so if there’s any magic involved, that’s a huge plus!

Thanks so much!

Has anyone read the 3rd and 4th book and was it as good as the first two?

I have been scouring this sub but I don't see anyone mention the latter 2 books or even the first 2 honestly. I know that the book will be about Allie and Ryker but not much else to know if its worth it.

I

Welcome to another month of [romance.io](romance.io) stats! You can find out the most recommended books in this sub for September 2026 below.

Since romance.io introduced some new tags a while ago, we decided to change things up slightly. We now have a category for most discussed standalones, and we retired the slow burn category to make space for it.

You can check out the r/FantasyRomance favourites, which is a link to romance.io of a collection gathering the top 250 most recommended books of the r/fantasyromance sub of the last 30 days. You can filter on any category or trope you want on this page.

You can find past months’ stats posts in the Romance.io Stats Wiki Hub.

(On mobile, you can scroll sideways to see more info)

Top 20 Books

Top 20 Authors

New sub favourites

Top recommended books that were released in the last 3 months or are upcoming releases

Standalones

Top books by genre, theme or trope

Urban Fantasy

Science Fiction

Poly

Queer

BIPOC MCs

Disabilities and Marks

Mature Couple

From Hate to Love

Top Low Steam Books

Top High Steam Books

Sub Stats Postimage

Release date: October 6, 2026.

Note: I've only gotten the courage to share my book reviews on this sub a few days ago even though I've been an active member in the sub for the past 2 years. If there is a preference for me only sharing books rated 4+, I'm open to prioritizing sharing those. I figured there might be interest in this book, since there's a lot of hype around it.

I really wanted to love {Reap & Sow by Charlotte Plumb} with its period setting, but it was a significant struggle for me. I was expecting a New Adult book, but I assume this book is geared towards a much younger demographic than I am, and that’s coming from a reader who has some YA books among my favorites (e.g. Divine Rivals, Once Upon a Broken Heart, Six of Crows). It felt somewhere between Middle Grade and Young Adult due to the register (abundance of exclamation marks, pervasive overexplaining including of jokes), FMC (20) & MMC’s behavior and attitudes, dialogue, and crude playground humor coming across much younger than their stated ages with Adult aspects mixed in including graphic gore, cursing, and open door spice.

While the book started off slow, I started to become invested by Chapter 4, when the stakes were raised and Eda acted with more agency. I wasn’t expecting action scenes so early on, but the story was able to build tension and pull me in. The pacing was inconsistent after that, where I found most of the story to be sluggish except whenever we hit action sequences closer to the end. The final chapters were the highlight of the story and brought back the tension that I felt around Chapter 4, when Eda met Kit.

The time period is not explicitly stated, but the fashion references (e.g. whalebone bodices with crisp white ruffle collars and austere puffy breeches) point us towards a ~1570–1620 Renaissance aesthetic, which I appreciated although the juxtaposition of modern informal dialogue in a period setting was jarring.

The register of the dialogue veered back and forth between faux archaic (Shakespearean-esque) and contemporary social media speak like what you might expect to read on Twitter or a text thread. It came across as stilted and wooden. The call and response banter style felt like they were just trading insults (e.g. “takes one to know one”) with a rapid fire of staccato rhythm of short simple sentences.

I was drawn to this book due to the comps to Rachel Gillig and Heather Fawcett, but didn’t find much overlap. Gillig's atmospheric, lyrical prose and Fawcett's academic whimsy both feel more controlled. If you enjoy the writing style of Sarah J. Maas (simple, fragmented sentences) or even Raven Kennedy, the writing here is a closer match although it leans more into camp than SJM or RK (think Zodiac Academy, though ZA commits fully to it).

There was a tendency in the book to overexplain. We’d be shown something and then told it immediately afterward including occasionally being told that something was a joke.

I found it hard to root for Eda and Kit given that she was often unkind towards him and at the worst of times, she spoke to him in a very cruel way when she didn’t get her way. Their connection felt declared rather than earned.

While this book was not for me, it might be for you if you are a Young Adult paranormal reader looking for an easy campy read with open door spice.

⭐ 2.5 🌶️ 3/5

CW: Graphic gore, child death, misogyny

This review is based off an ARC provided by Berkley XO.

What fantasy romance books have a setting in historical European countries during the Renessaince?

I love this setting and already read:

{Graceless Heart by Isabel Ibañez} set in Volterra and Florence (Italy) in 1468

{The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo} set in Madrid (Spain) in the late 16th century

The story can also include time travel, but I would prefer a protagonist coming from that time period.

Sorry I know that's a gross and weird ask. I am going to reread ACOTAR before the new release, so I thought I'd listen to the graphic audios for my reread, but a few hours into the first book I remembered how much people throw up in these books. Does the narrator just say "so-and-so threw up" or is there like... sound effects for it? And if there's sound effects, can someone describe them? Again, sorry for the gross question. I've got emetophobia and I'm trying to get an idea of what I'm walking into and if I can handle it.

This is your weekly opportunity to say it. Out loud. As Edward Cullen tells you:

This is the weekly thread to vent, say your peace, validate others for their own gripes, and discuss all things beloved (or perhaps not) about the genre.

A few ground rules:

• Critique the books & not each other.

• Disagreement is welcome; personal attacks are not.

• The spicier the take, the more explanation we’d love to hear.

Happy chatting! 🔥

Even better if she's the silent stoic type and he's the cheerful, and teasing kind?

Got the audiobook for Astarion but I haven’t seen any posts on the official threads that states what the cutoff is for the first discussion.

Discord server for anyone that wants to discuss romantasy books: https://discord.gg/PWnR5GptAB

We discuss romantasy books live, swap book recommendations, participate in virtual book club, post pet pictures, host gaming sessions, and discuss various things such as parenting, mental health, and get writing support. We're small enough the users know each other, but big enough that we're very active!

This is the official r/fantasyromance discord server, the link is also in the sidebar :D

Release date: October 13, 2026.

{Bride of Stone by Lisette Marshall} is a standalone novella in the world of Runewitch Saga. It can be read before or after The Death-Made Prince, but I’d recommend reading this first. If you’ve already read it, you may recognize Varraulis Averre, Estegonde/Gon Averre, and Errik Eirikson.

This book deals with female rage and the patriarchy, with quite a few misogynistic moments. Our pragmatic FMC Gon, 22, is the twin to sadistic crown prince Varraulis, who uses her as a pawn in his ambition. We start the book with her as a passive protagonist, a bystander in her own story— existing within a cage of her own making as a means towards survival. This made it hard to connect with her in the first third of the story, since she was outwardly a stoic character much like the MMC Errik, 28, but I ended up really enjoying her character arc as she starts to take control of her narrative and employ her cunning.

It’s been 2 years since I last read Fae Isles, so I can’t recall how Lisette Marshall’s writing style here compares to her past series, but I really enjoy her writing voice at a sentence level. The sentence structure is varied with nice rhythm and at times, poetic without ever overreaching. There’s subtlety in the interactions between characters, where there is so much communicated in what’s unsaid and in the micro gestures, which created a simmering tension between the characters. In one scene, a conversation lost momentum, because so much was communicated in between the dialogue, but overall, the writing felt mature and controlled.

I loved how guard Errik paid careful attention to all the little details about Gon that no one else would notice down to her specific eating quirks. The accumulation of his small, thoughtful acts of service showed that he was really paying attention made the romance feel earned. This is an MMC who yearns.

My only other critique would be that I'd like to see the antagonist Varraulis developed more in future books to be fleshed out beyond him being sadistic, a misogynist, and ruthlessly ambitious. I like villains to be written in such a way that one would believe that they would see themselves as a hero in their own story.

I recommend this novella to anyone who enjoyed The Death-Made Prince and is patiently awaiting the release of the sequel; anyone who intends to read The Death-Made Prince; and those who enjoy the writing of Clare Sager and Gretchen Powell Fox.

CW: misogyny, graphic violence

The House Averre

1. Bride of Stone ⭐ 4.25 | 🌶️ 4/5

Runewitch Saga

1. {The Death-Made Prince} ⭐ 4.5 | 🌶️ 4/5
2. The Thorn-Marked Witch - releasing in April 13, 2027

This review is based on an ARC provided by the author.

I feel like I haven’t seen enough gush/rave posts here. I devoured the 11 hours of this book! I didn’t listen to the audiobook but that is out too. I was smiling the whole time. Loved the banter and guessing the twists - saw a few coming but not the last one. I love all of Helen’s books so her reads are very forgiving for me.

Anyone else wanna gush or rave?

Just finished Brimstone by Callie Hart- and i just can’t! Need to discuss!!

So i just finished reading/listening to Brimstone ( i read while simultaneously listening to the audiobook! The narrators have done such a good job at the multiple voices and it just feels so much more surreal than just reading).
Ok onto the discussion now!

Spoilers ahead.

So i always thought Kingfisher was someone more than just fae, in the first book he always flips off the gods in the winter castle, and the God of chance called him his champion when he was speaking with Saeris at the end of book 1. So i knew there was a connection- what do you guys think? Is he also half god maybe? Or when he went through the quicksilver he was given a boon by the gods or something? Can’t wait till next sept to know more ugh! Why is it so farrrr.

Also if he was entitled to a Dragon, why did he kill O’Sachry? In the book Edina wrote “continue reading after the trade”, what do we think the trade was? Was it trading the break Hazarax Rune in exchange of Onyx’s life? What exactly is the trade?

Additionally what about Carrion’s power to grow trees? Flowers? It is touched upon so many times and then just nothing about it, at all! Why?

I found the Harzrax to be such an interesting character, but we never get to explore what is his intention? Why is he observing? His real name is not Hazrax but now the rune is gone and we may never know his real name? Or what he/it truly is?

Anything anyone else wants to discuss please go ahead and type in the comments.

Also please suggest new books/series to cure me from the Quicksilver-Brimstone hangover.