Good morning. It was a hare or maybe a small deer that prompted my own excursion into romantasy fiction. Stuck on the train home from London to Glasgow, delayed by animals on the track, I was in need of some diversion and found it aplenty in Sarah A Parker’s bestseller When the Moon Hatched, the tale of a female assassin whose fate intertwines – yes, sometimes quite spicily – with a grieving dragon rider.

Romantasy – a portmanteau of fantasy and romance – has become a commercial publishing phenomenon, the genre now dominating mainstream bestseller charts and powered by female authors and readers, the latter mainly under the age of 35.

Fresh from her visit to the opening of Britain’s first bricks-and-mortar romantasy bookshop, I spoke to our books writer Emma Loffhagan about what she overheard when browsing the shelves, and what the success of this fictional genre tells us about the realities of young women’s dating lives. Before that, the headlines.

Five big stories

1. UK politics | Nigel Farage told senior figures in Reform UK he would need “a million a year” to cover lost earnings if he stood for parliament in the 2024 general election, sources have told the Guardian.

2. Middle East | The US has fired on an oil tanker attempting to reach Kharg Island in the strait of Hormuz as part of its blockade on Iranian ports, as Tehran came under attack for the first time in this latest round of strikes.

3. UK politics | Keir Starmer has defended his record as prime minister in an often emotional final outing at prime minister’s questions, which largely avoided political jibes in favour of tributes and questions.

4. US news | Extreme heat warnings are in place for large swaths of the United States this week, as an unusual weather pattern eclipses record temperature highs.

5. Ukraine | Volodymyr Zelenskyy has dismissed Ukraine’s popular defence minister, despite pleas from foreign partners and civil society for him to keep his job, as part of wide-ranging government reshuffle.

In depth: ‘The escapism is a really big element’

While queueing to enter Bad Girl Books, which opened in Oxford earlier this month, Emma met women clutching totes emblazoned with subgenre slogans like “hot girls read smut” and swapping recommendations of their favourite fantasy world. For the sake of demographic accuracy, she counted two men in the 100-strong line, “both waiting patiently with their girlfriends”.

While it’s uncertain where the term romantasy first originated, what is beyond doubt is that these layered tales of magical kingdoms, filled with dragons, fairies and ardent lovers, have blown up over the past three years.

Sarah J Maas, for example, creator of the epic fairy romance series A Court of Thorns and Roses (or ACOTOR, should you require the BookTok hashtag), has sold more than 75m copies worldwide. And Rebecca Yarros, who wrote Onyx Storm, based around a training school for dragon riders, recorded the biggest UK opening week for a hardback fiction title in a decade.

Within these fantastical worlds, romantic plotlines flourish, with a whole vocabulary developed in online fan communities to articulate their every nuance: analysing scenarios like enemies-to-lovers, soul mates or love triangles or “morally grey” heroes.

Emma and I are speaking after author Wendy Jones caused an Instagram squall when she observed this week’s paperback bestseller charts are dominated – not for the first time – by stories that centre murdered women.

“Perhaps the rise of romantasy shows that if there is another framing for women to read about themselves in a book, they’ll take it. But maybe crime fiction’s enduring appeal to women readers also shows they enjoy reading about resolutions they don’t get in real life from the criminal justice system.”

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A boost for publishing

While romantasy communites have flourished on Instagram and Reddit, BookTok – the section of TikTok dedicated to book content – has provided the fuel for the genre’s explosion. “If you use the hashtag for a famous romantasy series,” says Emma, “you’ll find billions of views and fans ranking their favourite books and sharing theories.”

When Emma was reporting for the Guardian from this year’s Hay festival, she listened to a TikTok representative describing how BookTok is the biggest community on the platform. TikTok in particular gets a very bad rep when it comes to attention spans, but there is a really thriving community on the platform that not only talks about romantasy, but all kinds of books.”

This is evident at the cash register: in 2024, the UK’s publishing industry hit £1bn in revenue for the first time in years, a boost that can’t be uncoupled from the genre’s astonishing sales. Sales of science fiction and fantasy books rocketed last year, driven by romatasy’s popularity, with their value increasing by 41.3% between 2023 and 2024.

And it’s welcome on the sofa, especially with reading enjoyment among children and young people in Britain falling to its lowest level in two decades, with the decline particularly pronounced in teenage boys. “Even if these are not the most literary novels of all time, it’s still reading,” says Emma. “It’s still not looking at a screen”.

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What appeals to younger women

“What comes up a lot when you talk to women about what they like about romantasy,” says Emma, “is that the male characters are written in the female gaze. Most romantasy authors are women, and the romance storylines are very female centred. They flip expectations, and there’s often a lesbian love story as well.”

Even in this post-Fifty Shades publishing landscape, I’ve heard a bunch of women discussing with pre-emptive apology their taste for “fairy porn”. I’m curious whether this is a response to literary snobbery about (younger) women’s reading choices.

“Most people brought that stigma up without prompting ,” says Emma, of her Oxford visit – and they were keen to dispel it. “A lot of these books do have an element of spice – what they call sex – but many say the reason they were attracted to the genre was for the storylines, the friendships and the world building”.

It also gives women an access point to fantasy, a traditionally male-heavy genre, both in authorship and fandom, while offering a playfully feminist upgrade to standard romance tropes. In my train reading, for example, an early spicy encounter was halted mid-throb because the hero wanted more emotional connection.

I also wonder if younger women are devouring romantasy because it reflects something they don’t see in other genres. The last 20-something character I read in literary fiction was Joey in Jem Calder’s novel I Want You to Be Happy. She spent much of the novel miserably parsing text messages from her emotionally unavailable older lover in the cramped bedroom of her messy house-share.

“The escapism is a really big element,” says Emma. “The storylines can feel a bit utopic – women are the heroes, they are slaying dragons – while also having these amazing love stories. It doesn’t feel like it can be achieved in the real world: young women being able to have it all.”

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Heteropessimism goes mainstream

So the romantasy boom is happening at a moment when young women in particular feel disillusioned with modern heterosexual romance. Extremely online concepts like heteropessimism (noun: despair/disappointment at being attracted to the opposite sex) are now mainstream. The viral Vogue essay by Chanté Joseph titled Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now? prompted extensive debate about young women’s aspirations reaching beyond the heterosexual imperative of male validation.

Meanwhile, day to day experiences and substantial survey data suggest an ideological gender gap, with young British women more likely to describe themselves as left wing than their male counterparts of similar age – who are nearly twice as likely to vote for Reform UK. “Men and women are diverging politically and socially,” says Emma. “If you are a young woman today and you see that young men are less progressive than they were 30 years ago, it’s really isolating.” Emma is 26. “It’s understandable that women want to date someone who shares their values, and the pessimism is something I definitely see in my age group among friends who date men.”

There’s also a growing awareness of the ways that ubiquitous dating apps are infiltrating offline engagement.“There’s this online place where you meet people, so when you go out to a bar or a club, you’re not in that headspace. And if you do approach someone it’s seen as abnormal because ‘why are you doing that when you have a dating app?’”

And that’s prompting a gradual pivot to algorithm-free connections: the current trend for in-person singles events gives her cause for optimism. “It’s also hopeful that we’re acknowledging that something feels broken in dating and gender relations, and those discussions are partly prompted by the popularity of romantasy itself.”

For more from Emma and the Guardian books team, sign up here to get Bookmarks delivered into to your inbox every Sunday

What else we’ve been enjoying

• Anna Liedtke, who joined a flotilla sailing from Europe to Gaza last autumn, is the first activist to speak publicly about her experience of being raped in Israeli detention. Emma Graham-Harrison tells her devastating story. Hettie

• I’m a huge horror fan, and this week’s Pushing Buttons newsletter delivered the nerd-level detail I appreciate on how tropes are reframed to reflect contemporary fears and why career instability is an emerging theme. Libby

• Settle in with Andy Beckett’s gripping Long Read about Paul Dacre, the former editor of the Daily Mail who invented modern culture war journalism: it’s utterly worth your time. Hettie

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World Cup 2026

England 1-2 Argentina | England suffered World Cup heartache with two late goals in seven minutes giving Argentina a comeback win and place in Sunday’s final against Spain. Messi led the Argentina players’ jubilant celebrations. Some of the squad displayed a banner which read “Las Malvinas son Argentinas” (“the Falkland Islands are Argentinian”), which could lead to disciplinary action from Fifa.

France | Angelique Chrisafis reports on the brutal media postmortem following an anticlimatic exit for France, the early tournament favourites. “It’s sad. Infuriating. But that’s sport,” wrote Le Figaro.

The global game | Faisa Mohamed and Alfie Packham spoke with football fans who don’t support their home country. Says Paul, a France fan from Sheffield: “Everybody thinks you should support England because you’re born in England. Nope.”

Sport

Cycling | Norwegian sprinter Søren Wærenskjold won the fastest-ever road stage, in a frenzied sprint into Nevers.

Golf | English players are hoping Royal Birkdale will end nation’s long Open drought as they seek first home win in England since Tony Jacklin in 1969.

Football | Aston Villa have signed the former Everton goalkeeper Emily Ramsey on a free transfer for the Women’s Super League.

The front pages

The Guardian’s front page headline today is “Farage told backers: I need a million a year to stand as MP”. The Times has “Burnham keeps wealth tax in play” and the FT’s splash is “City relieved as Burnham poised to choose Mahmood as his chancellor”. The i Paper leads with “Care workers to get NHS-style annual pay rises” and Metro has “Teen hackers posed £56bn threat to UK”.

England’s loss to Argentina at the World Cup is the splash picture across most titles. The Telegraph says “England’s World Cup dream over”, the Sun’s take is “Wonderbawl” and the Mirror writes “Shattered”.

The Latest

Is a social media curfew for teens pointless?

Sixteen- and 17-year-olds face an overnight social media curfew in an extension of the government’s social media ban for under-16s. Under the plan, aimed at reducing online harms, certain apps would be blocked by default from midnight to 6am. But the curfew will not be mandatory and teenagers can opt out, so will it achieve anything? Annie Kelly speaks to social affairs correspondent, Jessica Murray.

Cartoon of the day | Ella Baron

The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

In the money-dominated, digital music industry, a new generation of zine-makers are finding ways to rebel. From hip-hop to indie pop and glamrock, a wave of devoted fans are reviving the old-school fanzine. Five decades on from their punk beginnings, this alternative medium that celebrates creativity for its own sake, not an exec’s bottom line, lives on.

The old guard are just as inspired, with zine-makers from the 1990s renewing their enthusiasm for the art.

As hip-hop musician and zine-r ExP puts it: “You’re almost definitely going to spend more time looking at a zine than anything you see scrolling … It’s the long way round, but the scenery is always better.”

Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday

Bored at work?

And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.

Late in the novel Ex-Wife, a pair of newlyweds turned sudden divorcees gather for a final dinner. Peter and Patricia are both somewhat battle-worn: after their lopsided open marriage came to drunken blows, Peter took up with a series of other women and moved out, while Patricia refused to formally divorce him. Unkind words were exchanged, and each had a habit of drunk dialling the other and suggesting doomed lunches or even more doomed sex. Someone was thrown through a glass door. Now, things are calmer. After a few wistful remarks and rather more Tom Collinses than is prudent, it’s time for Peter to call his former wife a taxi. As he leaves the room he pleads: “For God’s sake, think of something flippant for your parting speech, darling. I have thought of mine.” When he returns, both their efforts falter (having the last word is not always the pleasure it’s made out to be). But perhaps this is inevitable: how to sum up the end of a marriage?

One of the many successes of the book is that it doesn’t really try. Patricia, its narrator, equivocates and changes her mind, doubts herself and tells different versions of her partnership and its ending to different audiences for different reasons. The result is a moving, funny and at times disquieting portrait of a woman shocked by the end of something she thought would last for ever. Reading Ex-Wife as one myself, I was struck by our similarity of experience, despite the nearly 100 years separating Patricia’s divorce and mine. Here were the familiar flailing efforts at self-improvement, the disastrous dates repackaged as fun anecdotes for friends with fiances, the expensive facials one cannot really afford, the histrionic tirades about how Love is Irrevocably Broken. Among the alarmingly relatable humiliations and miseries, there were familiar triumphs, too: a near-manic night on the town with a fellow single friend, a perfectly timed comeback in an imagined argument, a flicker of self-belief on the walk home, those early flirtations that gesture at the possibility that another human being might one day desire and even love you.

Parrott’s ability to flit between high and low, light and dark, is well suited to her novel’s backdrop: the glittering yet sinister world of 1920s New York. Ex-Wife was released in the summer of 1929, months before the stock market crash that shook the country, at a time when American culture was flirting with a new modernity but still shaking off its Victorian overskirts. Stigmas surrounding divorce, premarital and extramarital sex, and women in the workplace, were fading but not gone; the novel, released anonymously in a deliberately suggestive paper-wrapped cover, trafficked in all these and more, including alcoholism, spousal abuse and abortion. The book was sold as a celebration of the 20th-century’s new woman: she who drank in speakeasies, danced in nightclubs and juggled her career with an array of suitors.

Its release was scandalous, and purposefully so. Published anonymously as a marketing gimmick, the papers called it “a sensational book about husbands and sex”. After a flurry of media speculation regarding its authorship, fashion writer (and real-life ex-wife) Ursula Parrott was outed by a gossip column, causing another round of press, with headlines like “Fiction or confession?” that will be familiar to anyone who has read reviews of female novelists’ work, even today. Though Parrott insisted Patricia was a composite figure, inspired by herself and other young women in similar circumstances, she bore a striking resemblance to the bobbed young flapper on the cover, and the association between the book’s glamorous, troubled narrator and its glamorous, troubled author stuck.

Born Katherine Ursula Towle in Boston in 1899, the girl who would become Ursula Parrott harboured dreams of writing from her student days at Radcliffe. “Kitty”, as she was then known, had mediocre grades but no lack of style. In the way of many young women familiar with their passions but not, for various reasons, their ambition, she married what she wanted to be: a reporter. The marriage was not a happy one; her husband Lindesay Parrott had made childlessness a condition of their union, wanting to focus on his career and enjoy the new freedoms afforded by the postwar period and their adopted home of New York City. But these freedoms were not distributed equally. It was still illegal to take or even distribute information about birth control, and Ursula became pregnant in 1923, shortly after their wedding. She retreated to Boston, where she gave birth in secret, named the baby Marc and left him to be raised by her parents and sister. Two years later, Lindesay discovered the existence of his son and divorced his wife.

Suddenly a single mother fending for herself financially, Parrott could no longer afford not to write. Blacklisted by her well-connected journalist ex, and struggling to be taken seriously by misogynist editors, Parrott resorted to the much-maligned genre of “women’s fiction”, turning out the story of Patricia, a young copywriter trapped in the purgatorial period between her marriage’s emotional ending and its legal one. Filled with beautiful descriptions of clothing and cosmetics, and laced with acidic one liners about booze and bad boyfriends, Ex-Wife struck a nerve. It was an immediate bestseller, shifting more than 100,000 copies in its first year of publication. Hollywood shined up the novel’s darker corners, repackaged it as the more audience-friendly The Divorcee, and released it as a hit film that won Norma Shearer an Oscar for the titular role. Parrott became an overnight sensation and worked hard to make the most of it. Over the next 20 years, she stubbornly carved out a name for herself in numerous works of fiction and short stories, in addition to magazine articles and film scripts, becoming a millionaire with a large following and ever-growing body of work.

But happiness did not come as easily as writing. Despite amassing a substantial fortune, Parrott died in hiding and in deep debt, having been arrested multiple times, once for “impairing the loyalty and discipline of America’s fighting forces” (she had tried to sneak a young soldier out of his barracks to take him to dinner). Three more ill-conceived marriages were followed rapidly by three more divorces, and her relationship with her son – whose maternity she only acknowledged seven years into his life – remained strained. Her abortions, alcoholism and other assorted scandals were mocked ruthlessly by the press. The public derision got worse as she aged, fulfilling the prophecy of her earlier writing on “Leftover Ladies”, her term for the female victims of a society that pitted older women against their younger peers. She spent her final years in various hotels, taking lovers, skipping deadlines to drink and walk her dog (a poodle named, incredibly, Ex-Wife), and amassing unpaid bills as she burned through her fortune. Beset by romantic and financial scandal, her commissions and work relationships dried up. After allegedly making off with $1,000 of a friend’s silverware during a house stay, she spent her last years hiding from an arrest warrant, dying alone of cancer in a charity ward at the age of 58.

In light of her life’s trajectory, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Parrott’s view on the new world and the new paths available for women within it was less than optimistic. “I am not a feminist,” she told Photoplay magazine in 1931. “In fact, I resent the feminists – they are the ones who started all this.” In Ex-Wife, Patricia mirrors her creator’s scepticism in her wry observations on the allegedly liberated ways the modern man and woman loved and made love. “Men used to buy me violets,” she says. “But now they buy me scotch.” Patricia’s world is full of cab rides in the park, of flirting in fancy hats and strong cocktails at raucous parties, but Parrott draws just as vividly those same parties after the third, sixth and 16th drink: the precarious economic position of women only professionally viable while still considered sexually so; the callousness and even violence of men no longer bound by old rules of decorum.

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The book is not so much a celebration of the unconventional woman as it is a roadmap of the dangers that might befall her. Parrott is a warts-and-all chronicler of her world as it is, but Ex-Wife is also scattered with glimpses of the world as it could be: full of supportive friendships, unconventional living arrangements, acts of stunning generosity between women, and even the kindness of a few gentle men. Though beautifully rendered, these are not the focus of the novel. Indeed, Patricia ends the book not as a new kind of woman, but one she has already been: someone else’s wife, ready to try again with her eyes more open. Having lost another love and accepted the proposal of a wealthy man who promises to respect if not romance her, Patricia and her friend Lucia consider her new life – and the gorgeous fur coat her fiance has bought her: “‘That’ll be alright, I suppose.’ She ran her finger down the ermine cloak. ‘It might be labelled “Success in the American edition”, Patricia.’”

A hundred years later, and “Success in the American edition” still feels difficult to define, particularly where heterosexual romance is concerned. Certainly, Parrott herself never felt she found it, despite her multitudinous professional achievements, and the hard-won, unconventional life she carved out for herself. Ex-Wife should have been the jewel in her crown: a precursor to modern autofiction as relevant, moving and scathing today as it was the day of its publication, a quintessential expression of Carrie Fisher’s suggestion to “take your broken heart and make it into art”. Though Parrott’s heroine compromises on a marriage of convenience, and Parrott herself ended up a “Leftover Lady”, Ex-Wife exists now as a testament to the other possibilities the turn of the century afforded women, not least among them the ability to speak frankly about the world as it was. Through her novel, Parrott has achieved something she couldn’t imagine for her heroine, let alone herself: the contested comfort of the last word.