Swordcrossed

[psocoptera]

Swordcrossed, Freya Marske, 2024 novel. This is a classic sweaterboy/absolute nightmare romance novel set in a vaguely-early-modern secondary universe (or maybe I mean late medieval?) with a plot centered around rivalries between merchant families in the wool industry. Is that romantasy, or does romantasy specifically have to have magical elements, or even more specifically nonhuman love interests? Anyways, if you wanted Swordspoint to be cozier, this is the book for you. "High Heat. Low Stakes. Crossed Steel." as it says on the cover. (I really liked it but I am pretty much exactly who this book was catering to. People on goodreads were like "too many wool facts" and here I am delighted by a book where I can read dudes banging and falling in love and also learn some wool facts. I would read one of these a year set in a different late medieval industry until the end of time, or until running out of industries forced the introduction of the industrial revolution and the world got less fun.)

Comments

[psocoptera]

Hmm, so a romance like this one set in an invented world would be a fantasy romance but not a romantasy? (I'm a genre descriptivist - it's all ultimately tools to help books and readers find each other - so if that's how people are using the term, that's interesting to know!)

No sweater but there were some scarves and waistcoats!