The Fantasy Hive Celebrates…

Here on the Hive, there’s nothing we love move than recommending you our favourite books, especially through our themed posts for Halloween and Christmas! So we put our heads together and thought, what else can we celebrate throughout the year with reading?

(Titles link to book reviews where available)

Apologies to all the events in January we missed, but we’re kicking off our year with…

St Valentine’s Day!

Nils

The Swan’s Daughter by Roshani Chokshi has my most favourite exploration of ‘true love’. Prince Arris and Demelza are both fantastic characters who both go on a fun, deadly and entertaining journey! This is fairytale esque, it’s full of whimsy and romantic in surprising ways!

Agnes Albert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett also has a slow burn romance which really captivated me. Agnes and Havelock have so much fun banter between them as they deal with chaotic magic, equally chaotic cats and their growing feelings for each other! Such an enchanting read. 

Vinay

Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove on the surface is a book about an AI hunting down Dracula but digging deeper you realize it is actually a very cute romantasy of sorts. The book itself was unexpected in a lot of different ways but the romance angle pretty much followed the constantly-being-at-friction with one another to holding hands (sort of) situation. A fun book with some wild swings that really makes you grateful and happy to be reading this genre, the romance angle is all the more elevated because of everything else happening around it.

Cat

Most recently, the loveliest romantasy I’ve encountered has been A Nest of Magic by Kate Moseman. It’s the bookish equivalent of a cosy chair in a library with a cup of your favourite hot drink – beautiful writing, magical relationships and genuine love that never seems forced or trite. Narnia for Adults with extra spice!

Emma

This Valentines get yourself stuck into ‘The Curse of The Fae’ series by Anya J Cosgrove. Somewhat cosy in places, moderately spicy but all guarantee a “Happy Ever After” .

If you prefer your love interests a bit more human and a bit darker, please please please pick up Tourist Season by Brynne Weaver. It’s a wonderful mix of laugh out loud humour and incredibly grisly murders, well, what do you expect when two serial killers fall in love?

For some lighthearted fun with monsters, I recently read Scorched by the Hellhound by Ivy Sparks and had a lot of fun. Monstrous firemen? It’s tropey and cliche but the perfect no brain needed escapism. 

Beth

Everyone enjoys a good love story around the most romantic time of the year, and one that really stood out for me in recent years was Paladin’s Grace by T. Kingfisher. It was such a great mix of a really sweet pair of characters falling for each other in a gentle, trying-to-learn-to-trust-again kind of way, and spice. Because older and complicated people can be sexy too. A more recent one I fell head over heels for was Books and Bewitchment by Isla Jewell – again, quite cosy, whimsy vibes but a hot romance to balance it out!

Valentine’s isn’t just for the heteros though! If you want that cosy feel but a sapphic romance, The Keeper of Magical Things by Julie Leong was perfect; forced proximity and grumpy and sunshine! Whilst packing in absolutely loads of magic and community. Again, if you’re after lots of magic with your gay romance, and a more historical fae setting, then A Market of Dreams of Destiny by Trip Galey absolutely needs to be on your list.

Ok, for those of you content with your sweetness from your heart-shaped box of chocs and are looking for something altogether spicier between the pages, Freya Marske and ST Gibson are the absolute queens of queer spice romantasies! Try A Marvelous Light by Freya Marske or Savage Blooms by ST Gibson for your gay and queer rep, or A Restless Truth by Freya or An Education in Malice by ST for your sapphic rep!