June 14, 2025

by Andrew Limbong

Hey newsletter readers! Last week we broke down the goings-on inside the U.S. Copyright Office. Thrilling stuff, I swear! Your thoughts below. As always, the inbox is bookoftheday@npr.org. And if you want to hear the latest author interviews from across NPR, subscribe to NPR’s Book of the Day podcast. Here’s this week’s letter!

Romantasy is here to (romanta)stay

If you’ve stepped inside a bookstore in the past five years, you’ve probably noticed by now that romance has been one of the main pillars holding up the publishing industry. Specifically, romantasy – the subgenre that’s a blend of romance and fantasy, merging various degrees of erotic writing with fairies and dragons and elves and kingdoms, etc. And the trend shows no signs of stopping.

Sarah J. Maas, author of the A Court of Thorns and Roses series, in New York in 2024. Cindy Ord/Getty Images

Let’s run through some sales figures, shall we? Sarah J. Maas, author of the popular A Court of Thorns and Roses series, sold 10 million print books last year, making her the best selling author in 2024. Rebecca Yarros, author of the Empyrean series, broke records when the latest book, Onyx Storm, became the fastest selling adult title in its opening week. This info comes from Brenna Connor, the industry analyst for Circana Bookscan, which just published a report highlighting the strength of the romance genre.

Brenna told me that, actually, romance numbers were on the decline in the years leading up to the pandemic. And then the lockdowns started and people began searching for big, romantic, sexy books they could sink into. “I think about the exhaustion and anxiety that many have experienced over the last few years, and romantasy is offering a means of escape for many readers,” Connor said. There’s also the massive influence of BookTok and what it has done to grow the audience of young, diverse readers excited about books.

But you know how sci-fi movies about killer robots are actually about our anxieties around technology? Or how dystopian fiction can reflect our worries about climate change? What does the popularity of romantasy say about society? Netta Baker researches and teaches popular romance at Virginia Tech, and she told me that romantasy’s popularity is a reflection of women (who make up the vast majority of romance readers) looking for agency and power, particularly with regards to sexual consent. That – if you pay attention to the storylines – the male main characters might be grumpy or moody or dark, but they still respect the female main characters, support them, and don’t sexually shame them.

I don’t want to over intellectualize things, though. These books are also fun, adventurous and, yes, sexy. It’ll be interesting to see where the genre goes from here – the Circana report suggests darker, ediger themes are rising in popularity. But what do you make of the genre’s staying power? If you’re a fan, what attracts you to it? Where do you see it going? Let us know – bookoftheday@npr.org

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TBR Pile

Speaking of darker themes, Colin Dwyer’s round up this week is chock full of books about murder, drugs and crime. Including a new one from thriller writer S.A. Cosby and a Pulitzer-Prize writer’s take on serial killers.

Flatiron, Marysue Ricci Books, Summit, Penguin Press, Harper

The author Thomas Mallon, of Henry and Clara fame, has put out a collection of his diary entries, titled The Very Heart of It. It spans from 1983 - 1994, just as the AIDS crisis was ravaging the gay population. WHYY Fresh Air book critic Maureen Corrigan says Mallon’s writing ”has managed to capture the all of it: the tragic and mundane, the petty and comically absurd lurking in even the weightiest moments of the past.” And his diaries are no different.

Oh, and Jason Reynolds, the MacArthur-grant winning YA author was just on NPR’s podcast Wild Card. Check it out!

Mailbag!

Thanks to all of you who stuck with me during last week’s wonky romp through the U.S. Copyright Office. Here’s what you had to say:

Kathleen C. wrote: “Thank you for explaining what the jobs are of the people who were fired by the current administration. It is alarming to learn that we just heard the echo of a hammer whacking a nail in the coffin of democracy and free speech.”

Peter S. wrote: “The nuances of copyright law have all sorts of implications for writers and AI is making it even more complicated. For example, U.S. copyright law is very clear that AI-generated content can not be copyrighted. However, if someone (an editor, for example) takes a collection of AI-generated text and arranges it into a book, the individual paragraphs in the book are not copyrighted, but the book as a whole (because it was curated and structured in a particular way) could probably be copyrighted. All these questions and more still need to be asked and answered.”

Phil S. wrote: “In regards copyright matters, methinks the future of literature is tilting very much towards the public domain. Authors can be directly compensated by readers, if their writing resonates. No need for publishers. No need for book agents. Good for literacy. Good for democracy.”

See you next week!

P.S., if a friend sent you this newsletter and you want to sign up, the place to do it is npr.org/newsletter/books. :)

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