Romantasy Is Just Shakespeare With Magic
This post is part of the Once Upon a Genre series, where we dig into the history, evolution, and DNA of romance books. Because understanding where things came from makes you love them even more.
Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet turned 30 on November 1, and I keep thinking about how much of what I want from romance books was already in that movie. Two families who would rather kill each other than share a city. Two people who fall for each other anyway. Everything going wrong because nobody stops to have one honest conversation. The high from that movie is one I’ve been searching for ever since, and I wrote a whole post on whether Romeo + Juliet (1996) turned millennials into romance readers.
Then I looked at the romantasy on my shelves and all over BookTok, and Shakespeare was everywhere. Some of these are retellings. Others never mention him and still have nods to his plots. Once I started matching Shakespeare romantasy books to their plays, more and more ideas kept coming.
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Why Shakespeare romantasy works so well
Shakespeare wrote for crowds who wanted big feelings, magic, sword fights and jokes that were a little dirty. That sounds a lot like the romantasy reader to me. He gave us the feud, the ghost who wants revenge, the witches with a prophecy, the fairy king meddling with mortal love lives and the twin mistaken for her brother. Romantasy kept almost all of it and changed one big thing. In his tragedies, love is what kills you. In romantasy, love is usually what saves you. A lot of the books below are the same story with the ending fixed.
Romeo and Juliet: the feud that started it all
This is the play romantasy borrows from the most, and I get it. The feud hands you enemies to lovers before the couple has even met. What romantasy changes is the timeline and the ending. Romeo and Juliet meet, marry and die in less than a week and it’s a tragedy. Romantasy stretches that usually into a slow burn across a series, and the lovers usually get to live happily ever after.
Hamlet & Juliet by Clare Edge
Hamlet & Juliet is the book that made me want to write this post. It comes out January 5, 2027 and starts the Star Crossed Duology. Juliet Capulet rose from her grave a year ago and Verona calls her a miracle, but she’s haunted by Romeo’s ghost and wants a mystic to get rid of him. Her mother takes her to the Midsummer Festival at Castle Elsinore to find a husband. There she rescues Ophelia from drowning and ends up face to face with Prince Hamlet, who is seeing his own father’s ghost.
Cordelia, Cesario, Imogen and Bottom all show up, because in this world every play exists at once. Compared to the original, Juliet finally gets an after, and a love story with someone who isn’t going to drink poison on a misunderstanding.
These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong
It’s 1926 in Shanghai. Juliette Cai is heir to the Scarlet Gang and Roma Montagov is heir to the rival White Flowers. They were each other’s first love and are now bitter exes, which is a smart twist, because the balcony scene already happened and went wrong. Then a madness starts spreading through the city and the two of them have to work together.
Of everything on this list, this follows the play the closest, down to the names, and the setting still makes it feel new. It’s YA and the first half of a duology.
The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent
Nobody in this book calls it Romeo and Juliet, but look at the setup. Oraya is the human adopted daughter of the Nightborn vampire king. To become more than prey, she enters the Kejari, a deadly tournament held by the goddess of death, and ends up in an alliance with Raihn, a vampire from one of the rival houses her father conquered two centuries ago.
It’s the feud with fangs. In the play the families are the problem. Here it’s the politics between the houses, and every alliance could get you killed. It’s adult and the first in the Crowns of Nyaxia series.
Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin
I really like this one and the aesthetic is superb. Lou is a witch hiding in plain sight and Reid is a Chasseur, a witch hunter sworn to the Church. A public mess forces them into marriage, so now a witch is living with the witch hunters.
The Montagues and Capulets had a grudge. Here one side burns the other at the stake, which makes every secret Lou keeps that much more dangerous. It’s YA and the first book in a finished trilogy.
The Dagger and the Flame by Catherine Doyle
Fantome is a Paris-inspired city run by two guilds who fight over Shade, a magic powder that lets you bend shadows. The Cloaks are thieves and the Daggers are assassins. After her mother is murdered, Seraphine takes refuge with the Cloaks and starts plotting revenge.
The problem is Ransom, heir to the Daggers, who has been ordered to kill her and who she’s sure killed her mother. So it’s Romeo and Juliet if Juliet walked into the story already wanting Romeo dead. It’s YA and the first in the City of Fantome series.
To Dream in Darkness by Ann Liang
I’ve read this one and loved it. When Romeo finds Juliet in the tomb, he wonders if Death itself has fallen in love with her and is keeping her there. Ann Liang makes Death the love interest. The cruel and beautiful Death God has never collected a soul late, until he comes for Rujia, the god of healing and the one god he’s fated to kill with his own hands. She bargains for a one-month reprieve in exchange for helping him break his century-old curse.
It’s a little dark, a great slow burn and a lyrical story, and a perfect read if you love c-dramas, mythology and falling for a villain.
Hamlet: a rotten court where the dead do the talking
Hamlet is a court full of liars, a corrupt king on the throne and a ghost who has to tell you how he died. Romantasy loves a rotten court. It’s half the genre, really.
The Foxglove King by Hannah Whitten
Lore can raise the dead. When she gets caught, the Sainted King and his priest give her a choice: die, or spy on the Sun Prince Bastian and find out why entire towns are dying. Part of the job is bringing victims back long enough to learn what happened to them, which is the most Hamlet thing on this list. The dead are the only ones telling the truth.
She’s guarded by Gabriel, a duke turned monk, so there’s a love triangle too. Fair warning, in book one the romance simmers more slowly than the court intrigue. It’s the first in the Nightshade Crown trilogy.
Macbeth: the witches get their say
Macbeth is the darkest play on this list, and it barely has a love story. It has a marriage built on ambition. So the romantasy angle here is giving the women, and the magic, their own part.
Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid
Roscille leaves France to marry Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis, and soon learns her husband has his own occult dealings, three witches and a prophecy included. If Roscille is a witch too, he plans to use her power for his own destiny.
This one is gothic and the romance is much smaller than anything else here, so pick it up for Roscille’s story more than for swoons. Compared to the play, Lady Macbeth stops being the villain in the background and gets her own reasons.
King Lear: the daughter who wouldn’t speak
In King Lear, Cordelia won’t flatter her father with pretty words, he banishes her for it, and it ends in tragedy. A daughter’s silence against a father’s greed. This pairing is one that once I saw it I couldn’t unsee it.
The Bird and the Sword by Amy Harmon
Lark’s mother cursed her to never speak, and her father uses that silence to manipulate her and control the kingdom. But words are magic in this world, and Lark’s silence turns out to be her power. King Tiras has secrets of his own.
Harmon never mentions Shakespeare, but the bones of the story are there. Cordelia’s silence gets her killed. Lark’s gets her a crown. It came out in 2016, before the BookTok romantasy wave, but it’s so worth a read.
Antony and Cleopatra: the lover or the kingdom
Antony and Cleopatra is the grown-up version of star-crossed lovers. Two powerful people who keep choosing each other over their empires until it costs them everything.
Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong
This is Chloe Gong’s adult debut. In the twin cities of San-Er, people can jump between bodies, and every year the palace holds deadly games. Princess Calla Tuoleimi, who killed her own parents five years ago, plans to win so she can get close enough to kill the king, her uncle. Anton Makusa, an exiled aristocrat, needs the prize to keep his comatose childhood love alive.
They team up, it turns all-consuming, and only one of them can win. Calla has to decide if she’s playing for her lover or her kingdom, which is exactly Cleopatra’s problem. It’s the first in the Flesh and False Gods trilogy.
The Tempest: the island romance Prospero wouldn’t allow
In The Tempest, Prospero rules an island with magic, keeps Caliban as a servant he calls a monster and arranges for Miranda to fall for a prince. Nobody asks Miranda.
Miranda and Caliban by Jacqueline Carey
Yes, the Kushiel’s Legacy author. Carey tells the years before the storm, when Miranda and Caliban grow up together on the island and go from friends to more, while Prospero has plans that involve his enemies, a love spell and, of course, a tempest. It switches between both of their points of view.
Be warned, this is a doomed love story with no happy ending. Compared to the play, it makes you see Caliban completely differently.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream: don’t make deals with the fae
A fairy king and queen at war, a meddling Puck and mortals whose love lives get scrambled by magic. Every fae court romantasy owes something to Midsummer. Karin J. Robinson makes the case over at the British Fantasy Society that Shakespeare wrote the first romantasy with this play, and I’m not going to argue with her.
An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson
I read this one years ago. Isobel is a portrait painter in Whimsy, where the fair folk trade enchantments for her work. When she paints the autumn prince, Rook, he takes offense at her portrait and whisks her off to stand trial.
The fae here are vain and dangerous in a way that is very much in the Titania and Oberon tradition, except this time the mortal talks back. It’s a YA standalone.
Much Ado About Nothing: enemies who are obviously in love
Beatrice and Benedick are the blueprint for bickering rivals. Everyone around them can see it, their friends trick them into admitting it, and at the end even the love poems they wrote to each other get used as proof.
Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross
Iris and Roman are rival reporters at the same paper while the gods go to war. Iris writes letters to her brother at the front and slips them under her wardrobe door, and they end up with Roman, who writes back without telling her who he is.
In Much Ado, the lovers get caught out by the poems they wrote. Here the whole romance happens in writing before Iris knows who’s on the other side. It’s the first in the Letters of Enchantment series. If letters are your thing, I have a whole list of epistolary romance books.
Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli
Rune plays a silly socialite by day. At night she’s the Crimson Moth, a witch rescuing other witches from being purged. Gideon is a witch hunter who suspects her, so she fake courts him for information and he fake courts her back to find evidence.
In Much Ado the friends do the tricking. Here the two of them trick each other and fall for it anyway. It’s the first in the Crimson Moth duology.
As You Like It: playing a part until it’s real
In As You Like It, Rosalind disguises herself as a young man named Ganymede in the Forest of Arden and coaches Orlando on how to woo her. She pretends her way into love.
Foul Lady Fortune by Chloe Gong
This is a spin-off of These Violent Delights and you can see that Chloe Gong loves Shakespeare! It’s 1931 in Shanghai, and Rosalind Lang, Juliette’s cousin, is an immortal assassin working under the code name Fortune. Her new assignment is posing as the wife of another spy, Orion Hong.
Rosalind and Orion stand in for Rosalind and Orlando, and the fake marriage does the job the disguise does in the play. It’s YA and the first in a duology.
Twelfth Night: twins, swaps and mistaken identity
Twelfth Night starts with twins separated by a shipwreck, then Viola disguises herself and everyone falls for the wrong person. If a book has a swapped identity, Shakespeare probably got there first.
Twin Crowns by Catherine Doyle and Katherine Webber
Rose and Wren are twins separated at birth after their parents were murdered. Rose was raised as the princess. Wren was raised by witches and has been training to take her sister’s place. When she finally swaps in, court intrigue and romance follow for both of them.
It’s the lightest pick here, a YA fantasy rom-com. And yes, Catherine Doyle also also makes an appearance twice on this list.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is romantasy based on Shakespeare?
Not all of it, but a lot of romantasy borrows some plots. The feuding sides from Romeo and Juliet, the bickering rivals from Much Ado About Nothing, the meddling fae from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the swapped twins from Twelfth Night keep showing up, even in books that never mention him.
What are the best romantasy books based on Shakespeare?
For open retellings, These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong follows Romeo and Juliet in 1920s Shanghai, Immortal Longings is her adult take on Antony and Cleopatra, and Miranda and Caliban by Jacqueline Carey retells The Tempest. Hamlet & Juliet by Clare Edge mixes characters from many plays.
Which Shakespeare play shows up most in romantasy?
Romeo and Juliet, by a lot. Any time two feuding families, houses or guilds produce a couple, you’re reading a type of Romeo and Juliet star-crossed lovers, usually with a happier ending.
Are there romantasy books based on Macbeth?
Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid retells the story from Lady Macbeth’s side as a gothic fantasy. It’s lighter on romance than most romantasy.
Final act: why we keep coming back to star-crossed lovers
Thirty years after Romeo + Juliet, it is still an iconic piece of media that perfectly encapsulates a moment in time, not just a literary piece. What these books show me is that Shakespeare’s plots still work. Romantasy lets the lovers survive them a lot more often, though. And don’t think Shakespeare’s influence is only in romantasy. I’ll work on another post with other genres as well.
If you’re newer to the genre, start with my romantasy guide for new readers. If you’ve been feeling burnt out on it lately, I dug into that in why romantasy books feel so bad right now. And if Midsummer is your play, my BookTok fae romantasy books list is your next stop.
Tell me in the comments which Romeo + Juliet version you grew up with, the 1996 movie or another version, and whether it’s still the one you picture when someone says star-crossed lovers.
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