For those looking for a decadent sapphic vampire romance, Patrice Caldwell’s masterpiece Where Shadows Meet will check your box and then some. This story is as much about love as it is about loss, sacrifice, and fate.

Favre sacrificed her wings for the goddess she loved, Thana. In turn, Thana sacrificed Favre’s love for power, but that led to ruin. Favre now walks as a creature of the night, hoping to one day resurrect the goddess she so loved who betrayed her.

A thousand years later, the vampire crown princess Leyla must travel to the island of the dead to save her best friend, but doing so may awaken a great, ancient evil.

How does a hint of classic Shakespearean romance set in a gritty underworld with fantasy elements sound? I give you this delightfully dark read. Eighteen-year-old Juliette Cai has returned to Shanghai to take over as heir to the Scarlet Gang, a network of powerful criminals. The Scarlet’s rival gang, the White Flowers, is led by Roma Montagov, Juliette’s first love and betrayer.

Both Roma and Juliette must look past their grievances with each other to unravel a growing threat taking place in their city. There are whispers of a monster in the shadows, with their gang members succumbing to madness and violence. This is the fantasy Romeo and Juliet retelling of romance-lovers’ dreams.

For those looking for a romance akin to Beauty and the Beast, A Forgery of Fate will hit all the notes.

Truyan Saigas is a con artist, thrust into the deceitful trade after her adventurous father goes missing at sea. Tru must paint forgeries in order to keep her mother and sisters afloat and safe. Tru also has the uncanny ability to paint the future, but even this gift isn’t enough: gangsters come demanding payment for her mother’s vast gambling debt.

In order to make ends meet, Tru does the unthinkable: she agrees to a marriage contract with a mysterious Dragon Lord. Any romance readers out there interested in the marriage of convenience trope? The Dragon Lord tasks her with painting a future so treasonous it may upend the world and their feelings for each other.

For romance readers who are looking for a slow burn romance with some dark academia, A Study in Drowning is one of my favorites. Ava Reid is a fantastic author; I am a feral fan of The Wolf and the Woodsman. A Study in Drowning is eerie, unsettling, and even frightening at times. The romance is as much about healing as it is discovery, and be sure to check the content warnings for this book, as it deals with a lot of very real trauma.

Effy Sayre has had nightmares of the Fairy King for as long as she can remember. She clings to her favorite book for comfort—Angharad by the famous writer Emrys Myrddin, an epic about a mortal girl who falls in love with the Fairy King, then destroys him. Now the only woman in a school of architecture, Effy is presented with an opportunity: Myrddin’s family is hosting a contest to redesign the family estate, and Effy’s work is chosen. When she arrives there, however, she is met with locked doors, a mysterious house, and the resentful Preston Héloury, who seeks to unmask Myrddin as a fraud.

The blossoming romance between Effy and Preston Héloury is tender yet desperate, and it’s a perfect parallel to the other elements in this dark academia, folkloric fantasy mystery.

Margaret Rogerson is one of the most underrated YA romantasy authors out there. I first came to her work with An Enchantment of Ravens, a stellar fae standalone romance. A Sorcery of Thorns is also a standalone, and I think that’s one of my favorite things about Rogerson—her ability to include a massive fantasy world in one complete book. No giant series required, dear readers!

A Sorcery of Thorns follows Elisabeth, a librarian in one of Austermeer’s Great Libraries, where magical grimoires are filled with knowledge and danger. Elisabeth is in training to become a warden: both a guardian and warrior. Elisabeth has known all her life that sorcerers are evil, and when a dangerous grimoire unleashes its power, Elisabeth is implicated in a crime. Now she must join forces with the sorcerer Nathaniel Thorn and his mysterious demonic servant to solve a centuries-old conspiracy and battle for power. Rogerson is able to do so much in a single book, including queer rep, fantastic magic, warm romance, and enduring friendship.

This is one of my favorite books; it’s a perfect encapsulation of rivals-to-lovers in a secondary fantasy world that feels similar to World War II. You can smell the ink of the newspapers, the smoke from the battlefields. You can feel the flickering candlelight.

 Eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow needs to hold her family together. She hasn’t heard from her brother at the front of the war, and their mother is taking to drinking to cope with her grief. To maintain stability for herself and her family, Winnow’s best bet is winning the columnist position at the Oath Gazette. Only her rival, Roman Kitt, is in the way of this goal.

Neither of them realizes that they own a typewriter with a magical connection, and when Winnow’s desperate letters find their way to Roman, an even stronger connection is born. This is You’ve Got Mail, but in a secondary fantasy world in a war of gods, and you won’t want to put this down.