Niche Interests

“We left Warrington at 5.15am this morning to get here,” Emma tells me, standing in a queue that stretches down Walton Street. It is just after 9am on a Saturday in Oxford, the students are still in bed and the tourists have yet to descend on the city, but this corner of Jericho is already buzzing.

It’s a queue for a new bookshop. That’s a good thing right? 

Oxford is rarely short of literary pilgrims. Every year, visitors flock to the colleges and libraries that shaped writers including JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and Iris Murdoch. But this crowd is here for something a little different. Instead of queueing for the Bodleian, they’re swapping recommendations for dragon riders and faerie kingdoms.  

Oh dear. 

The bright pink doors they’re waiting outside belong to Bad Girl Books, the UK’s first romantasy bookshop. The subgenre, blending fantasy and romance, has gone from niche online obsession to one of publishing’s biggest commercial success stories.

Yes my Kindle offers are usually stuffed with these, poorly written barely illiterate smut, but dragons are popular now so slapping a dragon on everything ensures it sells. 

Readers are immersing themselves in sprawling fantasy worlds of “enemies-to-lovers” storylines, where “fated mates” discover they were destined for each other all along, and brooding “shadow daddies” – dark, morally ambiguous male protagonists with supernatural powers – inspire devoted online fandoms.

Well, I have a taste for Laurel K Hamilton myself, but that tends to be rather better written than most of these. But at least it’s getting people reading.

“Last year I read about 100 romantasy books, and I’ve already read 60 this year,” says 22-year-old Izzy, who has been waiting in the queue with her friend since 7.30am. “I used to hate reading when I was in school, but then I discovered romantasy, and realised that there is a whole world of books out there that I really enjoy. It’s an escape from reality.”

And that's got to be a good thing, right? 

Inside, shelves are divided into categories including “Monster Smut”, “Unhinged” and “LGBTQ+”. T-shirts and caps proclaim “I Heart Fictional Men” and “Dibs on the Villain”; tote bags read: “I Like My Books Like I Like My Margaritas – Spicy”, and “My Favourite Colour Is Morally Grey.”

Oh, well, maybe not!