Black Romantasy

Saved my Love of Writing

Jasmin McGaughey

Give me fantasy and give me romance and I will find my way in life. 

I was as young as nine when this particular genre found me. I was not reading anything inappropriate for the sensitive nine-year-old that I was. In fact, it was the completely age-appropriate Deltora Quest Series by Emily Rodda that captured my heart and mind. I was beginning to identify myself as a Reader just like my mother. But it was the sweeping world of Deltora that marked a moment of change in what I looked for on the bookshelf. 

Some might laugh at the idea of romance in a young readers series of over fifteen books. But it was there! The romance between Jasmine and Leif was slow burn and so, so sweet.

The magic and mystery of the entire series was captivating, the characterisation deep, believable and relatable, and the journey the protagonists (animal friends included) embarked upon was thrilling. I could go on for my love for Deltora Quest, but I turned thirteen and the vampire and dystopian boom arrived. 

By now, I knew the type of story I loved. It had to have action, adventure, magic, and a young main character I could identify with. It also always had to have the right amount of love. 

So, it’s no surprise that I was and continue to be an avid reader of the fantasy with romance (contemporarily referred to as romantasy) genre. Though I’ve found much of what tops this genre in terms of bestsellers to be entertaining and, at times, invigorating, there are a few that have made me fall back in love with writing – those that I’d classify as Blak/Black Romantasy. 

Sitting neatly at 305 pages, Son of the Morning by Nigerian author Akwaeke Emezi folds in an immeasurable amount of feeling, lore, family, culture, and blackness. The novel is about the devil who falls in love with Galilee, a woman from a family of matriarchal power. 

 It’s a short novel, no word wasted, no moment leaving you wanting, and still it is heavy with poetry, weighty with what is left unsaid. Emezi wrote Black love and family with cleverness and complexities and joy. 

Pouring over this book in early 2026 during a writing retreat, I thought, this is the feeling I want to create for readers. This excitement and pride and sense that people who looked and maybe lived like me belong in these sweeping magical, romantic tales.

But what was it about the novel that struck me so deeply? Yes, Emezi is prolific and writes beautifully across multiple genres. But the story also felt like home. Like something familiar though I’ve never stepped foot in any scenario Emezi describes. 

I believe it was the undercurrent of culture and the connection of Black community that resonated with me, particularly Galilee’s yearning for belonging even within her community/family. 

Galilee Kincaid was born with an ache inside her. 

She’d felt it for as long as she could remember, continuous and insistent, a thousand small stings that never let up. Sometimes it swelled into a wanting with no direction, just an explosion of volume and intensity – sharp wings that tore her apart over and over again. She learned to breathe through it, to accept the stings even as the ache cost her sleepless nights staring at her ceiling while cicadas shrieked outside her window. 

Tigest Girma’s Immortal Dark is a YA vampire fantasy where every single character is Black. Girma is Ethiopian and her knowledge of culture is imbued into the very magic and mayhem she writes. Kidan enters into a university in search of her missing sister and must live with the beautiful vampire she suspects is involved in the kidnapping. The first instalment of this trilogy doesn’t necessarily have a large cast of family and community (at least not in the beginning). But Kidan’s longing for it, her fighting for it, rang true for me.  

What especially gripped me was the desire Girma ignited in her characters. 

He definitely wanted her. Her eyes roamed over his wide shoulders, over his skin, which was darker under the domed ceiling and glittering with drops of water. Heat grew in her chest, uncomfortable and uninvited. 

Melissa Blair is an Anishinaabe-kwe living on Turtle Island and has written a fantasy romance series called the Halfling Saga, which begins with A Vicious Game. Being Black isn’t part of the main plot or conflict in Son of the Morning and Immortal Dark. It is simply a fact. In A Vicious Game, the connection to colonisation and racism is a little more direct, though still settled in a fantastical world. Concurrently, in Blair’s world, queer characters are the norm. Blair has said, ‘Being queer myself, I decided to make a world where all characters should be presumed queer, unless otherwise stated.’ This is a perfect way to describe the impact of these stories. Where your community in the world (culturally, physically and more) is largely considered normal.

In Australia, First Nations romance can be found in many stories: Melanie Saward’s Love Unleashed, Anita Heiss’s long list of novels, and Skye Cusack's forthcoming romcom are just some examples planted firmly in the genre space. 

Ambelin Kwaymullina has long been writing speculative fiction and recently penned a beautiful fantasy story with romance for young adults, set in an entirely different universe to this one we live in (Liar’s Test). Jacob Gallagher’s new speculative fiction crime novel, The Doubles, and Mykeala’s Saunder’s Always Will Be also come to mind for their magc and adventure. 

We are writing ourselves into this archive of genre fiction. Film and television may be a step ahead of the literature space: Sinners has it all. But it’s often tinged with a trauma that is real and painful to consume. I felt no such pain in Son of the Morning and Immortal Dark. 

We often say, in the writers of colour circles I find myself in, that no matter what we write, it will inherently be Black (or the appropriate heritage) – due to our own identity. And while I believe this, I still can’t help but look for the kind of visibility that I found in Son of the Morning and Immortal Dark particularly – the sense of belonging and centrality crafted into these stories that sings to some essential part of me.  

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Jasmin McGaughey is a Torres Strait Islander and African American writer. She the author of Ash Barty’s collection of children’s books (illustrated by Jade Goodwin) and Mary Fowler’s children’s books (illustrated by Cate James). Jasmin is a black&write! editor alum, and has written for Overland, Kill Your Darlings, SBS Voices and Griffith Review and co-edited Words to Sing the World Alive. Her debut YA book, Moonlight and Dust, was shortlisted for the 2025 VPLAs and NT Book Awards.