Romantasy is a market mover, and publishers know it. According to the UK’s NielsenIQ BookData, volume sales for the meteoric trend grew 60% from 2023 to 2024 alone, increasing 171% since 2021. For context, fiction overall rose by only 7%.

But beneath the epic dragons and desire, these books and their male love interests aren’t just the moment: they’re a movement. Like its big sister, romance, romantasy has become a refuge for women and queer readers at a time when cishet men are increasingly embittered and dating is dire. Seriously, check the memes on #DatingThreads. 

The irony? Romantasy book boyfriends are delivering on respect, communication, awareness and trust. All in lieu of actual, real-life men.

Watching the present state of the US from across the pond, it’s easy to see why. Between Trump’s mediocre-white-man energy and federally mandated bigotry, toxic podcast bros like Andrew Tate and the trickle-down effects of both on everyday men, modern (1950s?) masculinity is imploding in spectacular, red-flag fashion. As lawyer and TikTok legend Reb Masel quipped, we’re not witnessing a male loneliness epidemic – it’s a "loser epidemic". And women are done.

So, what do readers want instead, because it’s sure as hell not this? Well, women and queer authors are rewriting the narrative, with men who make their main characters feel safe, in every sense: emotionally, physically, sexually. They’re writing men who don’t default to problem-solving, because they don’t just act, they listen, cry, forgive. For way too many women, men like this aren’t the exception to the rule, they’re hypothetical. Until, that is, they’re not.

Enter the romantasy book boyfriend.

He’s hot, sure, but it’s not all tropes and thirst traps. This guy has substance. He’s smart. Funny. Attentive. Emotionally intelligent. And once he’s found his special someone, he’s devoted to the point of absolutely feral if his partner is in distress. He’s giving Rhys or Xaden. 

These fictional boyfriends aren’t aspirational because they’re tall, ripped fae with magic and wings. They’re the standard because they do the work: if they screw up, they apologise. They learn, they show awareness and they grow, vulnerability be damned. They blend their strength with softness in a relationship, and give more than the bare minimum. In short, they’re not afraid to love.

Romantasy has become a refuge for women and queer readers at a time when cishet men are increasingly embittered and dating is dire.

And they’ve evolved past the early days of Sarah J Maas’ "alphaholes" – which puts them at an advantage over reality’s chronically underwhelming baseline. Romantasy book boyfriends are protective, not possessive, with an onus on love and well-being, not control.

Finally, there’s the spice factor. These fictional, fantasy men provide a safe space for women to explore their natural desire (with consent and foreplay in sex scenes. I know, groundbreaking!). And while some readers own their love of ‘smut’, others simply enjoy the private wish fulfilment they may not get from intimacy in real life – via the female gaze, without shame or apology.

The thing is, romantasy isn’t simply an escape from life’s casually dystopian hellscape. It’s about possibility, love that runs the entire gamut, that can be both fierce and tender, with characters as complex and nuanced – and importantly, empathetic – as people can and should be in real life.

But despite romance being the second-biggest genre in the UK, and the biggest in the US, both it and sub-genres such as romantasy are constantly dismissed as female fluff. And this is exactly why it’s so threatening to the patriarchy and purity culture as seen in the US: because romantasy’s success relies on women’s capitalist power while depicting feminist narratives and agency.

These fictional men aren’t just fantasy, they’re a protest against the current climate. And the more that actual men insist anger isn’t an emotion yet do literally anything except get help, the more women will choose swoony book boyfriends over them to fill the gap.

Romantasy book boyfriends are required corrective fiction, and will continue to thrive only until modern masculinity steps up. Until then? Sorry babe, I’ll be manifesting Velaris.