Ten years, ten books, one increasingly unsupervised bookshelf.
This post is part of Top Ten Tuesday, the weekly bookish linkup hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl at thatartsyreadergirl.com/top-ten-tuesday where book bloggers everywhere answer the same prompt each week. This week's prompt asks what you were reading on this exact day over the last ten years, which assumes a level of record keeping I simply do not have. My reading tracker in 2017 was a pile of receipts used as bookmarks. Mercifully, the prompt offers an escape hatch: pick a favorite from each year instead. So here it is, my decade in romantasy, 2016 through 2025, one book per year. Think of it as the origin story of how a person ends up cataloguing 750+ fantasy romance titles for fun. It was a slippery slope and I climbed down it on purpose.
2016: A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas. Feyre, Rhysand, the Night Court, and the single greatest mid-series pivot the genre has produced. Still sitting near the top of our top rated fantasy romance list, and still the book I hand people when they ask what the fuss is about.
2017: Rhapsodic by Laura Thalassa. Callie is a siren who owes the Bargainer a wrist full of magical IOUs, one black bead per favor, and after seven years he has come to collect. Criminally under-discussed fae romance with one of my favorite slow reveals of a shared past.
2018: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black. Jude Duarte taught a generation of readers that the correct response to a fae prince being awful is to out-scheme the entire court. Elfhame is beautiful and hostile and I would not survive a single dinner there.
2019: A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett St. Clair. Persephone, Hades, and a bargain gone sideways in modern New Athens. The book that kickstarted a thousand Greek retellings, and still one of the sharpest.
2020: From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout. Poppy the Maiden, forbidden everything, and a twist I refuse to spoil even six years later. The comfort read of lockdown, ask literally anyone.
Feyre is broken and traumatized from her time in the Spring Court. Dragged into the Night Court by a creature of terrifying power and beauty, she finds herself on the edge of a dark abyss. In a world of privilege and beauty, cruelty and nightmares, she must learn to trust in order to survive.
A supernatural romance plays out between two characters bound by dark attraction, forbidden magic, and circumstances they cannot control. Chemistry burns through dangerous obstacles as their connection deepens inevitably. Passion and danger create an obsessive love story.
Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. She'll have to outwit the cruel prince who rules there.
A paranormal woman is drawn to a being of shadow and supernatural power in a dark, dangerous romance. Magic and attraction bind them in ways that defy logic and survival instinct. She discovers that darkness can hold unexpected tenderness.
Chosen from birth to usher in a new era, Poppy's life has never been her own. The life of the Maiden is solitary. But when Hawke, a golden-eyed guard, enters her life, everything changes. As secrets are revealed and danger closes in, Poppy must decide between duty and desire.
2021: A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas. Nesta and Cassian, training montages, and the reason half of BookTok learned what a spice rating is. If you are new here, our spice level scale explains the chili peppers on every book page, and this book is why the scale needed its upper numbers.
2022: Kingdom of the Feared by Kerri Maniscalco. Emilia and Wrath close out the Kingdom of the Wicked trilogy with a finale that commits. It sits comfortably alongside the spiciest romantasy books on the site, which is saying something.
2023: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. Violet Sorrengail, Basgiath War College, and dragons with opinions. The book that pulled an entire wave of new readers into dragon rider romantasy and, in many cases, back into reading at all.
2024: When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker. Dragons become moons when they die, and Raeve, an assassin with a missing past, meets a king who seems to know her better than she knows herself. The most inventive worldbuilding of the decade, do not argue with me in the comments. Actually, please do.
2025: Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros. Round three of the Empyrean series. I preordered it, cleared my calendar, and regretted nothing except the cliffhanger.
And one bonus from today, August 11, 2026: Savage Monsters by Renee Asher. A why choose dark fantasy debut, two weeks old, that landed on the shelf because the author submitted it herself through our submissions page. Ten years ago every book on this list reached me through a publisher's marketing budget. Now some of my favorites arrive as an email from the person who wrote them. Best change of the decade.
That is my decade. If you wandered over from the linkup: hello, welcome, stay a while. This whole site is what happens when this hobby goes unsupervised. If you want a starting point, the romantasy match quiz will pair you with a book in about a minute. And I would genuinely love to know what your August 11 books were, so tell me in the comments. I read every single one.
Nesta Archeron has survived the war, but barely. Rife with shame and rage, she isolates herself until Cassian, the winged warrior she's despised, offers her a second chance. As their connection deepens, they must confront dangerous forces and their own demons.
War threatens the demon kingdom and Emilia and Vittorio must work together to prevent catastrophe. Dark secrets are finally revealed, and the true nature of their bond is tested like never before. This is the finale that ties together every thread of betrayal, desire, and ancient magic from the series.
Violet Sorrengail was meant to become a scribe until her commanding general mother orders her to enter the dragon rider academy. She must survive deadly competition and paranormal creatures while uncovering dangerous secrets. As her world expands, so does her capacity for power and love.
Speck discovers a mythical world where dragons hatch from the lunar sky, and she finds herself caught between protectors and hunters. The warrior who finds her is complex and dangerous, but he teaches her that power comes in many forms. As dragons emerge and the stakes rise, she must choose which world she truly belongs to.
The third book in the Empyrean series hits hard. Dragons, found family, enemies-to-lovers, and enough plot twists to break your heart.
Luna is worshipped as a lunar goddess on a floating isle, which makes her the prize in a succession race between three heirs she'd rather not marry. Then wyverns twisted by shadow start dropping death from the skies, and finding out who is making them matters more than any throne. Multi-POV dark romantasy with arranged bonding, why choose romance and a runic alchemy system.
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Published August 2026 by The Fae Shelf editorial team. Updated regularly with new releases and community feedback.
