With midnight book launches, record-breaking sales and billions of TikTok views, romantasy has turned into one of the biggest commercial juggernauts propping up modern publishing.

But why are stories combining high fantasy and female-centric erotic romance still dismissed by mainstream culture?

Guardian Australia’s lifestyle editor, Alyx Gorman, joins Taylah Strano to unpack the global phenomenon of romantasy and the divisive release of Sarah J Maas’s latest novel

Read more:

Latest Sarah J Maas book becomes UK’s fastest-selling adult fantasy novel

‘We sold out tickets within 13 minutes’: new novel from romantasy author Sarah J Maas sparks fan mania

I have flung myself headfirst into Sara J Maas’s romantasy universe and I find myself a changed woman – Johanna Cosgrove

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