Dark Romantasy Books to Get Swept Away In

In an Edwardian England-like world and the shadow of a world war, cabals of magical families seek to control nations using their powers. Miles Singer has spent his life running from his magical destiny, going so far as to serve in war and then disguise himself by working at a veteran’s hospital. When an interaction with a patient exposes his magical gift, Miles is compelled to investigate the patient’s murder with the help of the gorgeous man he’s fallen for, all while fighting his destiny.

This dark Beauty and the Beast retelling centers on the cursed Prince Rhen, who has destroyed his family, his castle, and any hope of love in his monstrous fits of rage. Harper is a young woman from Washington, DC who has lost her parents and is struggling to care for her brother. When she intervenes to save a stranger’s life, she suddenly finds herself in Rhen’s magical, and dangerous, world. Is Harper the key to breaking Rhen’s curse and saving his kingdom? Or will he destroy her like all the others?

Talasyn has grown up an orphan in a nation constantly under the siege of the ruthless Night Emperor. But Talasyn holds a dangerous secret: she burns with the light magic thought to have been eliminated years ago, the same magic that killed a previous emperor and ignited the Hurricane Wars. Prince Alaric is the emperor’s only son and is tasked with protecting the kingdom at all costs. When Alaric sees Talasyn glowing on the battlefield, it leads to an uneasy, and sizzling, alliance between the two.

Set in Shanghai, in 1926, this dark and fantastical novel is set against a backdrop of gang wars and rival families. The Scarlet Gang and the White Flowers have warred for centuries, but now a monster has emerged that may be bigger than either of them. Rival gang members Juliette and Roma find themselves fighting dark forces, and rekindling their forbidden love, in this Romeo and Juliet retelling.

This dark and fantastical Phantom of the Opera retelling centers around Aria, a penniless and destitute ward living in the remote town of High Tower, where the only highlight is the town’s famed theater. While others are afraid of the opera’s seductive power, Aria must go to its depths and find the source of its powerful music to avoid an arranged marriage. When she meets a masked man willing to teach her, she is drawn into a dark web of attraction, murder, and mystery.

Evelyn is a witch with dangerous impulses and a vampire ex who has fallen through a portal to another realm. Bowen is a pirate who can’t remember life before the Cŵn Annwn, a band of pirates who patrol the Threshold, the magical sea between realms. When Evelyn’s portal delivers her to their ship, the tension between the two begins to mount as they find themselves in increasingly dangerous situations while sailing the magical seas.

St. Clair turns her talent for combining myth and fantasy into the story of Isolde de Lara, a vampire hunter who agrees to marry the vampire king Adrian and then kill him. When Isolde’s first assassination attempt is thwarted, she and Adrian begin to form a tenuous truce and a dangerous attraction to one another as Isolde fights to survive the vampire court.

When Stephen’s god dies, he is left behind a broken paladin. Stephen feels useless until the day he meets a fugitive named Grace and witnesses an assassination attempt. Suddenly, the pair are on the run through a city of spies and poisoners, trying to outsmart and evade a cryptic killer.