Cosy Fantasy

by Sangu Mandanna

As an author and a reader, I talk about cosy fantasy so often these days that I frequently forget no one was using the term two years ago. Cosy, yes. Fantasy, of course. But the two together, encapsulating a particular kind of story? Not until recently. 

My romantic cosy fantasy, The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, published last year, but I started writing it in 2020. I didn’t call it a cosy fantasy then, in spite of the fact that it is undeniably cosy and unquestionably a fantasy. It has an old, welcoming house by the sea, a quirky and loving found family who give the protagonist the love she’s always yearned for, blooming flowers, and plenty of tea. It’s a setting I created because I wanted to escape from the brutal reality of 2020. It is, for me, the cosiest place I can imagine myself.

And the more I think about it, the more I see that cosiness is something I’ve loved in my fiction (and, let’s face it, in my reality too) for a very, very long time. Years before breakout hits like Travis Baldree’s Legends & Lattes stole our hearts and helped set the stage for this new age of cosy fantasy, Howl’s Moving Castle (the book) and Practical Magic (the movie) were iconic. Cosy, blanket-snuggling, hug-giving joy and found family feels brought to life. Even more recently than that, T.J. Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea and Roselle Lim’s magical novels were giving us immaculate cosiness without necessarily using the term.

There’s no denying, though, that while this kind of fiction has existed for forever, there’s been a noticeable surge in its popularity in the last two years. From New York Times bestsellers like the aforementioned Legends & Lattes to TikTok favourites like Kimberly Lemming’s Mead Mishaps series, from wonderful children’s fiction like Kelly Barnhill’s The Ogress and the Orphans to graphic novels like the wildly popular Tea Dragon Society series, we as humans seem to be more in love than ever with all things cosy, magical and cuddlesome.

Why? I’m sure there are a lot of reasons, but for me, I look back once again at 2020. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that so many of us have started reading (and writing!) softer, cosier, kinder stories since a global pandemic that cost us loved ones, left us unable to climb a flight of stairs without getting breathless, and caused us almost unthinkable levels of anxiety. My books before the pandemic were exclusively darker, angstier fantasies, and, even when I’m not writing a novel that’s specifically cosy, I’ve noticed I’m still writing worlds I want to run to.

Which is not to say that gloriously angsty, dizzyingly action-packed fantasy isn’t still enormously popular. It is, and rightly so. It’s just that I think we’ve made more room than we used to for a softer, gentler kind of story. After 2020, after the last few years of political upheavals across the world, I think we’re all longing for comforting tea and a loved one’s hug and a world that makes us happy.

We’re all longing for joy. Maybe it’s just that simple.

Sangu Mandanna was four years old when an elephant chased her down a forest road and she decided to write her first story about it. Seventeen years and many, many manuscripts later, she signed her first book deal. Sangu now lives in Norwich, a city in the east of England, with her husband and kids.

Sangu’s website | The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches is available on Bookshop.org