I grew up at a time when romance books rarely had fantasy, and fantasy books rarely had women. Fantasy was almost all men and boys–or so it seemed to young me, scouring the bookshelves in the bookstore for hours while screaming within: where are my women in fantasy books? Where are the love stories sprinkled between the pages? So I wrote them: epic fantasies, fairy tales, gothic fantasies… but from women’s points of view, and I added kissing and dubious morals for funsies, because I love the deep, dark, desperate, poetic emotions. Love in places where morals warp. Yes, give me adventure, unspeakable danger, and the undertone of torment ubiquitous in fantasy, but also give me perilous smiles and stolen kisses amid the phantasmagoria of magic.
I love things being deliciously dark, deep, and complex.
But be wary! I was writing looooong before romantasy was even a glimmer in Sarah J. Maas’s eye, and while I was initially stoked when romantasy became a thing (because wasn’t that what I wrote…?), I soon felt as though the genre had arrived a decade too late for the me who would have loved it. It was similar to the way I felt when people gushed about Harry Potter and Hogwarts. I tried to read them, but I had simply read too far beyond that point in my reading journey, if that makes sense.
All this to say: romantasy is not precisely what I write, but what I write ‘lite’. Which essentially means that if you feel cynical, old, jaded, or even bored when you read typical romantasy, hello and come in! You might be my reading soulmate!
You might like my books if you would enjoy:
- books that delve deep into your soul, not just skim the surface
- George R.R. Martin if he wrote mostly women and wasn’t so murder-happy
- Laini Taylor or Patricia McKillip if they went all dark love on us
- occasional bits of whimsy and coziness in the midst of subtly gut-punching darkness
What do I hate in books? Misunderstandings. Lack of communication (those problems that could be resolved if the characters actually behaved like adults and simply asked the other person). Cheating (if it’s in a book of mine, it’s not with the end-game love interest).
What do I love? That love always triumphs in the end.
As a person, I am vehemently empathic and neurodivergent, riddled with high-functioning anxiety and OCD (and now depression, yay), and I read every night before bed. When I was twenty-two, I ran away to Prague, where I now sing to my black cat (who collects dustballs in her whiskers), eat chocolate for breakfast, and have lemon tarts every Thursday.
If you wish to enter my world, choose your poison prudently… as all poisons are meant to be chosen.
The Types of Books in My Mental Nooks (for graphics, click here):
For adult epic fantasies featuring heroines of all ages, from 13 to 46 years, with multiple POVs and love story subplots in every story line, try my Heiress of the Seven Cities series. The most recent one, about a spurned queen and her peace-loving daughter is Heiress of Secrets.
For gothic/cozy fantasy & darkish fairy tales, try my free short story Roses and Bruises and Love about a cursed girl finding a boy under her roses every day, or my whimsical and only slightly darkish novella Wishes and Whispers and Sibilant Hisses about a lonely princess whose castle is breached by a sinister stranger who offers her companionship, the gothic novella The Assassin: A Love Story about a girl who sings a dying assassin back to life in a kingdom ruled by an undying king, or try the gothic romance anthology Slightly Sweetly, Slightly Creepy. Or, for an ongoing alternately facetious, gothic, and fun fairy tale, check out the Proud Princess tale I add onto in my blog every few weeks or so).
For an alternately beautiful, alternatetly dirty, smutty orc-princess-elf romance, try The Wicked Orc.
For dark fantasy where no love interest is safe, try my Ever Spirits series.
For something utterly lighthearted, try Never Trust a Prince, where two ex-princesses get into shenanigans with dragons and trolls and love.
I once wrote some NA Dystopians that are currently unpublished but might fly to life again (my Wingscape series).
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Look how approachable I am! –>
Sonya Lano 