Tumble head over heels for these 12 gorgeous Romantasy stories from bestselling and beloved authors.
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The Hopeless Romantic’s Guide to Enchantment, an anthology edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane, which releases on 15 September 2026.
A pair of harried servants try to romance their respective bosses into a universe-saving marriage. Two bitter political rivals discover they have interests in common, and decide not to let a little thing like murder get in the way. After years apart, childhood nemeses come together to resolve their differences, and face down a common foe.
From Regency England to a mysterious Romanian forest, and from a city made of flowers to a sinister faerie train, love conquers all in these 12 beautiful tales, featuring brand-new stories from Hannah Nicole Maehrer, Kelley Armstrong, Rebecca Thorne, Alexis Hall, L. R. Lam, A.Y. Chao, Juliet Marillier, Chloe Neill, Olivia Atwater, Jen Williams, Greer Stothers, and Vida Cruz-Borja.
Rose Bloom, Rose Bud, Rose Blood
By L.R. Lam
The quill is cut. Here is the parchment, the ink, and the blotting sand. The door is locked, the curtains drawn, and the sole candle burns bright. Are you ready to begin? Write down every word I say, no matter what. Do you promise? I can read and write, but my palm is burned, and I want my words clear as a bell.
Yes, I will tell you all as it happened. I know it by heart, after all.
Hurry, now, before the Black Moon rises.
Let’s begin.
My love bloomed too early.
She wasn’t even one and twenty summers. I thought we would have more time.
Wait, I’m not starting at the beginning.
She was the baker’s daughter, and I was the daughter of a bookkeeper for the merchants at the dock of the nearby town. We met on the rubble of the beach by the harbour, not long after my father had moved us from the capital.
My father had told me the fresh air would do us good, and my mother had scoffed. The air by the pebbly beach was brackish with the smell of seaweed, so I agreed more with her, until I saw my love, bending down to look for sea glass.
I was fifteen, all awkward elbows and sharp edges. My dark hair would never stay tidy. She was sunshine – golden hair, rosy cheeks, and a wide smile. I was mesmerized and surprised that she seemed to find me just as interesting as I found her.
“I heard your mother is a hedge witch,” she said to me once we’d realized we both lived in the same village. “Is it true that she has blood magic?”
“She’s a talent for herbs, is all,” I demurred, knowing better than to admit any differently to someone I’d just met.
We lived on opposite sides of the meadow. I was in a grander house of stone, whereas hers was a ramshackle cottage with old, moss-choked thatching.
I’d fallen for her within months, of course, but I think it took her a little longer to even realize that a girl could love another girl. Over the next five years, we often walked through the woods, fingers entangled, telling ourselves that was just what friends did. We found excuses to brush shoulders. I’d tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, even if a tendril hadn’t truly escaped.
“If you could wish for anything,” she’d ask me. “What would you wish for now?” She trailed her fingers in the stream, the hem of her skirt wet.
A kiss, I’d want to say, but I’d give her some other answer, time and time again.
We spoke of everything. I lent her books from my father’s library, and sometimes we’d argue about what we read. She could be a little stubborn, though I was more so. While I might lash out in frustration, she clammed up and might not come to the meadow for days until my love finally arrived, I grovelled, and she forgave me and apologized, too.
She taught me the magic of turning yeast, flour, water, and heat into something more. I’d burned my first few loaves terribly, but when I finally managed a fluffy one, I tucked it beneath my arm and took a knife and a little ramekin of butter out to the meadow. We ate the whole thing, hot and steaming, until not even crumbs were left.
We were total opposites, but thick as thieves, my father always said of us, fondly. I remained the thundercloud to her sunbeam. I was prone to assume the worst, and she’d cajole me into a smile instead of a scowl.
That second winter, a cough stole first my father’s voice, then later his life. I took over his bookkeeping, for I’d always had a head for numbers, and I was good enough at it that people didn’t seem to mind so much that I wasn’t a man.
“Be careful with that girl,” my mother warned me one day, as she was drying herbs in the kitchen. She, too, had been a village maid until my father had taken one look at her in a market square and fallen head over heels for her, as if he’d taken a love potion. Perhaps he had. My father taught me numbers and ledgers, but my mother had tutored me in more arcane subjects. The prick of a spindle, and the magic that welled up, bright as that bead of blood, and how to use it. I’d taken to that just as easily.
I waved away my mother’s concerns and headed out to the meadow, where my love was waiting for me. Every day I didn’t get my wish, though, the want for it cut me a little deeper.
When she danced with the village boys in the hall during festivals, I’d bite my lip so hard it bled, a burst of magic sparking along my tongue. I’d turn down any boy who asked me for a whirl beneath the holly boughs, perhaps a little more viciously than necessary. I knew, of course, that my love was nearing the age to be thinking about marriage and babes and all of that would keep her tethered to this village. Would I be able to stand at her side? One day, would I say I’d had enough, and my mother and I would disappear in the middle of the night and head back to the capital and its anonymous bustle?
Finally, on the longest night of the year, when we were eighteen, after yet another dance finished and my love spun around the floorboards with another farmer’s son, I could bear it no longer. I took her hand and led her out to our spot in the meadow.
“If you could wish for anything, what would you wish for now?” she asked, and her lip trembled.
“This,” I said, and pressed my mouth to hers.
For a moment, I feared I’d made a mistake, but then her lips parted, her tongue darted against mine, and I was lost and found in equal measure.
We lay down in the meadow grass, and she said I smelled of gardenia. Our lips brushed, light as a butterfly’s wing, before she crushed me to her. Our fingers intertwined, then our limbs. We peeled off our clothes, reverently, and traced the outlines of each other’s bodies. I quivered as my tongue followed the curve of her breast, or followed that faint line of muscle at the centre of her stomach. She smelled of roses and sea salt. Neither of us knew exactly what to do, drawing on instincts and our own explorations of our wandering hands beneath our covers over the years. And when we cried out, overcome, only a barn owl flying across the moon was our witness.
We stayed out in the meadow, whispering until morning, our secrets and promises catching on the wind. We were inseparable after. Her parents and my mother pretended not to notice the obvious shift, but I’d still see the warning in my mother’s eyes. She’d known, long before me, that this could never last.
