This November, Emily Krempholtz released one of the most charming and delightful cozy romantasy novels of 2025: Violet Thistlewaite Is Not A Villain Anymore. Early blurbs call it cozy and swoony and if you’re wondering what to read as the weather gets colder and days get longer, can you think of a better book with those descriptions?
Violet Thistlewaite has earned a place among the favorite cozy fantasy novels released in the last few years. It has all the ingredients of a good one: a dash of a romance, humor and a heartwarming plot, you can tell Emily Krempholtz knows the genre as well as her readers.
So, what are Emily Krempholtz’s three favorite cozy romantasy novels?
I love a cozy fantasy—the found family, the heartwarming themes, the copious descriptions of baked goods that always make me hungry—and I also love the swoony, emotionally-driven stories you find in a good romance. Some of my very favorite books meet right in the middle of these two genres.
A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna
Mandanna has such a knack for writing ensemble casts that are so easy to fall in love with, and this one does not disappoint. There’s a talking fox! A zombie chicken! A young man who runs away to the Renaissance Faire! Two elderly women too stubborn to admit they’re in love with each other! The story follows Sera, a formerly powerful witch who lost most of her powers resurrecting her beloved aunt, and her journey to try and regain those powers with the help of her quirky little found family at the inn she runs—including the handsome, grumpy man and his sister who have recently come to stay.
A Witch’s Guide is a gorgeously constructed book about outcasts, family, and belonging, and Sera and Luke’s love story is equal parts heartwarming and swoony. The second I finished reading this book I wanted to turn back to the first page and start again.
The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels by India Holton
I could yap about how much I love India Holton’s writing all day—she’s witty and whimsical and laugh-out-loud funny, and she consistently manages to write adventure romances that have so much action they shouldn’t fit the definition of cozy and yet somehow just are. That comes through in all her books, but Wisteria Society will always have my heart because it was one of the first books I’d read of its kind, and its had a chokehold on me ever since. I swear, every page of this book has at least one line that just fills me with delight by way of clever humor or some outrageous turn of events that somehow just feels right for the story.
The romance in Wisteria Society is a swashbuckling romp between a charming assassin and the proper young lady—who also happens to be a house-flying pirate—that he’s sent to kill, and if that alone doesn’t convince you to pick it up, then get out of my (flying) house.
This Princess Kills Monsters by Ry Herman
You might think you know your way around fairy tale retellings, but come back and see me once you’ve read Ry Herman’s retelling of the obscure Grimm tale “The Twelve Huntsman.” This hilarious, queer retelling (of a fairy tale that at, at its source, doesn’t always make a whole lot of sense) tells the story of Melilot, a princess with a mostly useless magical talent sent off to marry a prince in a neighboring kingdom currently being plagued by monsters. This book was at times so absurd I had to put down the book until I was done laughing and at times so clever that I had to read lines aloud just to break down how much I loved the writing.
Twelve huntsmen with ridiculously specific magical abilities who are identical for… reasons, a gender-essentialist talking lion you’ll love to hate, a mother-daughter subplot that packs a surprising emotional punch, a sweet romance between Melilot and (spoiler!) someone who is decidedly not the prince, and so many blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fairy tale references you’ll feel like you’re spotting cameos in an SNL sketch all combine to make This Princess Kills Monsters a ride from start to finish.
Violet Thistlewaite Is Not A Villain Anymore is available now from Berkley. Order here.
Brianna Robinson is a book publicist and Sarah Lawrence College alum. She lives in New York with too many books and two enthusiastic dachshunds. You can find her on twitter @blrobins2.
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