Ever wondered where the line is drawn between a romance and a fantasy novel?

Jenn and Mistie are back for a sensational second season, where we tease apart the threads of Romantasy and Dark Romance,

Content Highlights

• Spot the difference
• Real or not real
• We are never, ever, ever - forgetting The Ritual

Other Mentions: Throne of Glass, ACOTAR, Fae Isles, Patricia Briggs, True Blood, Darynda Jones, Guild Hunter, From Blood and Ash, The Ritual, The High Mountain Court

Hey y'all, welcome back to folks with the story. I'm so excited to be back in the recording studio with Mistie and we are recording season two today, and what we're doing for this season we wanted to give you guys a little heads up on is we are going to be doing a mix of Romantasy books along with our dark romance. We wanted to bring in some new elements, new books, to just kind of encourage you guys to step outside of your comfort zone, make a mystery, read things that I like as well, while she tortures me with all these dark romance raids back to back. But we will be bringing you all kinds of fun things this season. So let's dive into this episode where we chat through what Romantasy is.

That was beautiful, just like your soul, Jenn. Okay, so today we're going to talk about Romantasy, the genre or the sub genre of romance, and according to Urban Dictionary, it defines Romantasy as a name that's a hybrid between a fantasy and a romance novel Just the most ridiculous definition, if not accurate, I have ever read. You asked a direct question. It gave you a direct answer it's a hybrid between fantasy and romance. That's it.

Yeah, pretty much.

We did some research and we pulled things from different elements and so I figured it would probably be best to break up a fantasy novel and urban fantasy I didn't go into epic fantasy and then romance and then kind of mash them together. So from our research, a fantasy novel with a romance is a story where the romance is a subplot, where the fantasy is larger than the romance and extends beyond the romance, which I can agree with that.

Yeah, for sure.

But according to our WA, there are two definitions for just a romance novel. You have the romance novel that has a central love story, and then you have one that has an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending, which I don't understand what the difference is, but okay. So a romance with a central love story is that means that the main plot centers around individuals falling in love and struggling to make the relationship work, and then a writer can include as many subplots as they want as long as this love story is the main focus of the novel. And then the second one is with the emotional, satisfying, optimistic ending is a romance. The lovers who risk and struggle for each other and their relationship are rewarded with emotional justice and unconditional love. So I don't know how any of the well, I hope those will help us come up with a better definition of what romantic is.

Yeah, I feel like the second one isn't. I don't feel like it does the definition justice. I mean, and I feel like you, obviously you have romantic and I feel like that. For me anyway, that's where the focus is largely on the relationship going through whatever the plot is right. So you see, a lot of their point of view. There's not in my opinion, there's not like multiple point of views throughout the book or series or whatever. Like I feel like the best and I'm such a basic white girl sometimes I feel like or like maybe like a basic book talk girl, like whatever you want to call it, but like I feel like one of the best representations of both in my humble opinion is thrown of glass, is very plot driven.

Like you have the romance stories but, like for the most part, it is a plot driven series Again, my opinion Whereas ACOTAR, especially the first three books, is largely surrounding this the love story, the development of favorite relationship, I agree those are the best two examples and, I think, a good foundation moving forward.

Yeah, throne of Glass is definitely plot, and so it's more that's fantasy with a romance story, whereas an ACOTAR is a romantic because it is about the love story and it's just in a fantasy setting. So that's. I had a train of thought and I lost it, like it was like literally there and then it just went poof, nope, you don't get this thought today. Somebody else stole it. It was going to be epic, I'm pretty sure. So we can use those two as a foundation. And then in my little key notes I have equal balance of romance and fantasy, but I don't know if that's accurate, based on the two book, the two series, that we have a foundation. Do you think that that is or no?

Yeah, I mean, I think that even if it's an equal balance, I still feel like it's romantic, I feel okay. So another again, and this isn't a series that you've read, but I feel like Fay Isles does a really good job of balancing the relationship and also the plot.

Okay, the world is growing. There's a lot of character development, there's a lot of like the magic system evolves every single book, plus the relationship evolves every single book, which again, maybe why I'm loving this series as much as I have, because you're getting both when I love ACOTAR, like it's the very first series that I got back, got me back into reading and I just I have us. Until Fay Isles I hadn't found anything that like you need this thing feels, as ACOTAR did.

Okay. Does no no, no, I think that's good. I know I'll finish that book one day. I was just thinking about it last night. No, I looked at it and I was like, huh, I'm like 40% of the way through book one. Should I like read another chapter for a bed, or should I start this new mafia romance and guess what?

And then she started the new mafia romance. I didn't even need you to finish the sentence, because I know what you went with.

It's like it's the 17 book series and, like I've just been, I'm on like book six. I think I've just been to five or six. I've been devouring them. I don't know if I'm going to read all 17 of them. That's probably a lie, probably will, but we're going to be optimistic. Okay, so back to defining Romantic. So we're going to define Romantic as a fantasy novel that the main story is the romance and the setting and the world building and, like the magic is secondary, something in that effect.

Yeah, I would say secondary or equal to Okay.

So secondary or equal to, I don't know. My favorite fantasy subjohn just to throw this out there to make the episode a little bit longer is urban fantasy. That's my favorite.

I do love some urban fantasy.

Yeah, and I defined urban fantasy as that. It does not require the creation of a new world, imaginary otherwise, but has the same fantastical elements in a modern setting or current world setting.

And then, of course, so what are some of your favorite?

sorry, go ahead. No, it's okay. My favorite urban fantasy.

Patricia Briggs Okay.

Patricia Briggs.

Okay, I haven't read any of her.

So another thing that I and this is where it varies depending on the person so for my personal opinion, urban fantasy it has that setting, but the population or the world or like whatever it is, is aware of whatever those supernatural or fantastical elements are, it's not hidden. So to me, like True Blood, that's urban fantasy, because everybody knows that vampires exist. Right, it's not hidden. Oh, that's my, that's part of my personal definition. That's not necessarily everyone else's, so if we look at everyone else's where, that's not part of it. Another urban fantasy series that I like is Darynda Jones, the Charlie Davidson series. She's a private investigator and part-time Grim Reaper.

That just cracks me up. Part-time Grim Reaper.

Yeah.

I think that is hilarious.

It's so good.

Interesting. I like. I like the idea of like. Part of the definition is that it's not hidden, like it's part of the world for them to be in the world, like the Guild Hunter series, right.

Yeah, that's, that's urban fantasy.

Yeah, okay, yeah, okay. Well, I haven't read a ton of urban fantasy, so I feel like I shouldn't even like say what my favorite is. Because the only two I could think of off the top of my head is Guild Hunter in Crescent City. There's only two, I think.

I'm sure I've read others, but I can't remember. You can go ahead and say Guild Hunter series, Nalini Singh .

I mean, it's very good.

You won't hurt my feelings. I love that yeah.

Yeah, and the next book comes out when.

April.

Okay, I knew it was sooner because she it's typically like the fall, so I'm really excited that it's yeah.

She pushed it back. I'm not quite sure. I don't remember what was said or why, because it's normally in the fall, september to November, yeah, so.

Well, regardless, it's going to be a fun spring reading year.

Oh yeah.

It's coming out this spring.

And so we also decided that it's the leader of Crescent City. I know, don't get me started on that, because it's the third one doesn't drop to the end of January, right?

Yeah, I'm probably going to start. Did I tell you that Mike got me a hardback of Crescent City one, so I can like annotate Crescent City one, my paperback. I'm so excited I think I'm going to start that tonight.

Oh, really Tonight.

Yeah, because I'm I want to like take my time and highlight and not to eat and like all the things, because I'm a nerd.

I am still deciding if I'm trying to reread all of her stuff or just Crescent City, because I don't remember hardly anything. I guess between the two of us we should be able to wing it yeah.

Yeah, sure.

Okay. So we decided that we are not going to build a Romantic scale. We don't need it. We're still going to just keep the darkness, the spicy and the stars, because any Romantic book has varying degrees of darkness. And so, to recap, a Romantic novel is fantasy, but the romance is the main or equal to the fantasy elements, something to that effect. I don't remember what I said earlier. Dang it, okay. And then our foundation of basing it on whether it's a Romantic or fantasy is going to be Throne of Glass and ACOTAR by Sarah J Maas.

Yep, yep.

I love it.

Me too.

I have this thing here at the bottom where I talk about characters effect on the world and worlds effect on the character. It's an effect and it and Influence when it comes to fantasy and I don't know. I feel like we should talk about that, but I don't know what it means, because I took this note like two weeks, like in December three days ago, I Think. It was like and that was such a long time ago, okay, I don't know that. Just kind of that just just stuck out to me.

Yeah, I mean definitely in fantasy, you're definitely. I mean so often you know there's some type of war, you know epic adventure. The main characters having to go through like not only In a lot of times realizing what's happening in the world, like favorite today, have any idea what was going on in prithyan Poppy had no idea what was going on in, like with the ascending and all of that. I know, um, you know there's. There's discovery, along with character development and growth.

But that's okay as long as the main focus is the romance. To be a room, oh yeah.

I mean, I mean, here's the thing, like, I feel like, in order to be a good book Period, you have to have some elements of that, not as grand as you have in fantasy, but like you have to have, you know, a discovery, development, like acceptance of who they are, you know, stepping into their power, and all of that in order for it to be a Good book. In my opinion, which, which is why, like Not to harp on the same thing what drove me crazy about the ritual is, like every time she tried to step into her power and like Mm-hmm, be okay with everything.

They're like no, sit back down, you're a woman. I'm like fuck that.

Yeah, that's a good point. Thanks for letting me add that in. On the whim, he doesn't have to have magic for for it to be romantasy.

Well, because I'm trying to think like what? Like what fantasy or romantasy series, duet book doesn't have Magic or and or beings in it? Like what can you think of it any?

Not at the top of my head. I couldn't remember a few days ago, remember, well, because I okay. So I would say I would say it classifies as fancy because it's an imaginary world, it's not a modern set world. So anytime you create a new world that makes it fantasy, okay, I feel like you did not agree with that.

Well, I'm just I'm trying to decide if I agree with it, because I'm sitting here like a but like if a romance author Just makes up a city, okay, a city Like, but it's still modern, setting right.

So let's say they make up a city outside of you know what's a popular city at Denver and they call it Dry land. I don't fucking know, I can't think of anything, but it's still set in the modern world. They still have modern technology, they still have cars. They just decided to pick a hundred acres outside of Denver because they're millionaires and they bought it and they created their own town, like that's. That's not creating a new world, that is creating a city within a world that already exists.

I Okay, that's fair.

Okay, so how does magic fall into this? Or, like supernatural creatures, yay or nay?

So I feel like, in order for it to be classified as fantasy, like you almost need the magic or the beings or the something.

Well, if we're looking at the definition, it's a new world is being created, right? The new world doesn't necessarily have to have special supernatural or paranormal elements, but like hypothetically, if we take the throne of glass, because that's our foundation, that is fantasy, because it's set in a new world and, yes, while there are powers and evil spirits, whatever you wouldn't class if you took that out, you wouldn't classify as historical, right, it's a good no. So I think it just depends on the storyline. It can have it, but it's not required.

Okay, okay. So like, if you remove the paranormal or like fey aspect of book of a book and it still doesn't fit in like modern times, then I guess it lands in fantasy. Yeah.

So, like high the high mountain court, if we took all the magic out, If we took all of that out, it would still be considered a fantasy. They you know yeah. Yeah, so I think it just I think it can vary both, both ways.

Yeah, I agree with that. I was arguing with you initially, but I feel like I feel like you're right in that you know you can classify it as fantasy because, like you said, it's something completely different new world, all of that fun stuff.

Yeah.

All right. So what is your definition of romantic? See and let us know your favorite titles and maybe we will add it to this season's lineup.

Thank you for joining us on the journey into the shadows of love, where dark romance stories come to light.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of bones of the story as much as we did. If you did, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. Your feedback means the world to us.

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Remember, our next tantalizing episode is just around the corner, so keep your hearts open and your senses sharp.

Until then, embrace the darkness and let the stories continue to stir your deepest desires. This is Mistie and Jenn signing off from bones of the story.

Transcribed by https://podium.page