All Booked | Dragons, Shadow Daddies, and the Politics of Escapism

The original version of this newsletter was sent out on Tuesday, March 10.

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Hello, fellow bookworms!

It seems there’s no escaping the romantasy genre these days. I’m normally a terrible skeptic of the romance genre and all its branches, as much as I wish I liked it. I held out as long as I could, but I have to admit that Rebecca Yarros’s books are a lot of fun. And after reading our fantastic reporter Ella Heydenfeldt’s breakdown of the genre below, I’m tempted to give it another try.

I’ll hand things over to Ella to take you away into the realm of fairies — sorry, fae — and dragons. Happy reading!

—Tessa, allbooked@independent.com

My original plan was to write a well-behaved review. Something respectable — perhaps Edward Abbey (I am an environmentalist, after all), Cormac McCarthy (a slight fatalist), or even Elizabeth Gilbert (sometimes all I want to do is “eat, pray, love”).

But I am not going to review any of those deeply intelligent, reverent, Pulitzer-adjacent books that I can only dream of producing one day.

No. That is not what I am going to do.

Instead, I am going to shamelessly introduce you to the world of smut, shadow daddies, dragons, and fae.

And yes, I am aware my boss may read this.

But, hey, in the name of truth: These are the books I devour in one sitting, joyfully sipping apple spice tea and munching on dark chocolate chips straight from the bag.

The gateway drug into this exotica-meets-slight-erotica fantasy land is the empire built by Sarah J. Maas. You’ve seen the red cover in public — someone holding A Court of Thorns and Roses with a faint blush and a death grip. I know I have. And when our eyes meet, there is an unspoken understanding: Ah. You, too.

Welcome to the land of Fae. Not fairy. Fae. Fa-ay.

They are overtly handsome, lethal, mostly human — just better in every conceivable way — and occasionally winged. In Maas’s world of Prythian, there are seven courts: four seasonal and three solar. Book one is essentially a not-so-Disney Beauty and the Beast. Feyre, a human huntress, kills a wolf who turns out to be fae and is forced to live in a magical realm with the beastly High Lord Tamlin. Book two? Even better. Beauty and the Beast get divorced. Emotional devastation. Enter a new beast. Book three? Full war. The princess narrative disintegrates, but the spice does not. This series earns its R rating.

From there, you graduate to Throne of Glass — bigger world-building, sharper plotting, and character development that is just incredible. The first book introduces an assassin dragged from a salt mine to compete in a brutal competition for the king. By book three, you are not even reading the same series. There are massive twists, allegiances fracture, enemies become lovers (yes, I am predictable), and the scope balloons into continent-spanning, interdimensional warfare with enough family trees to rival even Game of Thrones. Holy fucking smokes.

If A Court of Thorns and Roses is your initiation, Throne of Glass is your indoctrination.

And if you are asking me to actually judge these books, it’s all love-bombing over here, baby. If I had to have a qualm, I would say there is much more complication and apparent forethought/plotting in Throne of Glass than there is in ACOTAR (if you want to be in this freakshow club, use the acronym).

ACOTAR could have risen to that level of complication with the number of courts and families, but it did not. It remained relatively localized.

But the series that finally made me sit down and admit I needed to write about this genre is Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. My most recent obsession.

Dragons.

We are at a war college called Basgiath, where 90 percent of cadets die during the three-year training process. Violet Sorrengail — small, chronically ill, more scholar than soldier — has spent her life training to become a scribe. A glorified librarian. A historian.

Her mother, the commanding general, has other plans.

Into the Riders Quadrant she goes, where cadets must bond with dragons who are statistically more likely to incinerate them than accept them. Violet is underestimated immediately. Physically fragile. Too small. Too breakable.

I think this is why I feel emotion in my chest when I read this book. It is about a “weak” girl. Yes, she was born with a brain — a highly intelligent one — but most people see her and underestimate her immediately. I would bet most women can relate to that feeling.

She trains. Still underestimated. She trains more.

She bonds the biggest dragon — not because she suddenly becomes physically dominant, but because of her mind. Her sass. Her will. Her cunning.

Enter Xaden Riorson — diva devil, ultimate antichrist to Violet, essentially born to hate her (her mother killed his father). Enemies to lovers, a tale as old as time — yet somehow refreshing here.

I think it’s because of Violet’s inner monologue. It is funny. Dry. Sharp. The way she falls in love, how her brain goes about it. It’s relatable.

And I’m a sucker for sarcasm. Sue me.

Now, let’s get out of la-la land for a second and talk about another reason this book resonates.

It is also about a government that lies to its citizens — and the slow, painful awakening of realizing how deeply manipulated you’ve been. The students are training for a war they know nothing about. Leadership controls the narrative; information is restricted; history is artificially written.

What I like is that the ultimate evil is not the government. Yes, it is corrupt. Yes, it withholds information and causes death. But the real evil is something else entirely — the Venin, magic-draining creatures that represent an existential danger far bigger than bureaucratic manipulation.

That speaks loudly right now.

That duality is what makes the series especially relevant. There are systems that fail us. There are governments that lie. But there are also larger crises — climate change, global instability, resource collapse — that dwarf our petty political theater. In Fourth Wing, the government is dangerous, but it is not the ultimate evil. It is merely distracted, arrogant, and power-hungry in the face of something far worse.

Fantasy romance has been dismissed as unserious, indulgent, frivolous — a guilty pleasure. Yet it is one of the most commercially powerful genres in publishing right now. People are reading about war colleges and fae courts and dragon riders in staggering numbers.

Maybe because these stories offer something both primal and radical: power. Choice. Survival. Desire without apology.

You can read about a world that has the same themes as our own, but it is not our world. You can escape this one and explore a million magically entrenched versions of apocalyptic political landscapes. And you can root the hell out of a heroine and gleefully watch at 2 a.m. as she is forced to battle it out with the ridiculously hot antagonist.

I know I’ll be up at 3 a.m. if they happen to stay at an inn and there is only one bed left that they must share.

So, on that note, you can keep your dusty literary minimalism.

I will be over here with the fae and the dragons.

—Ella Heydenfeldt

FROM OUR PAGES

We’ve had some great author visits and interviews recently, so don’t miss out. Here is some of our book-related coverage from the last two weeks! Read all this and more at Independent.com.

“Inside Is Making Us Sick: Dr. John La Puma Leads a Tour of His Farm on the Mesa to Talk About Cures for the ‘Indoor Epidemic’” by Callie Fausey

“Paul Willis’s Orvieto Takes Readers Inside an Umbrian Hill Town” by George Yatchisin

“Rich People in Santa Barbara Offers a Wealth of Coastal Flavors” by Tiana Molony

UPCOMING BOOK EVENTS

Below, you will find a few bookish events coming up in Santa Barbara. If you are hosting a bookish event in Santa Barbara, be sure to submit the event to our online events calendar.

School Book Fair for Cleveland Elementary School

Tuesday, March 10, 5-7 p.m. | Chaucer’s Books

Comic Chaos Club

Wednesday, March 11, 4 p.m. | S.B. Central Library

Blue Whale Reading Series

Wednesday, March 11, 5:30 p.m. | Unity of Santa Barbara Chapel

Romance Book Club

Wednesday, March 11, 5:30 p.m. | S.B. Central Library

Poetry Reading: Paul Willis, Orvieto

Thursday, March 12, 6 p.m. | Chaucer’s Books

Godmothers Gather: Dr. Deepika Chopra, The Power of Real Optimism

Thursday, March 12, 6 p.m. | Godmothers

Storytime at the Sea Center

Saturday, March 14, 10:30 a.m. | S.B. Museum of Natural History Sea Center

Storytime at the Sea Center

Sunday, March 15, 10:30 a.m. | S.B. Museum of Natural History Sea Center

Goleta Valley Library Poetry Club

Sunday, March 15, 2 p.m. | Goleta Community Center

Everyone Has a Story: A Memoir Writing Workshop with Diana Raab

Wednesday, March 18, 10 a.m. | Montecito Library

Book Talk & Signing: Elizabeth Gilchrist, Rich People in Santa Barbara

Thursday, March 19, 6 p.m. | Chaucer’s Books

Godmothers Gather: Jordan Salcito, Smart Mouth: Wine Essentials for You, Me, and Everyone We Know

Thursday, March 19, 6 p.m. | Godmothers

Trail Talks: Wildflowers and Other Wonders of the Santa Barbara and Ojai Mountains

Thursday, March 19, 6 p.m. | S.B. Central Library

Sensory-Friendly Storytime

Friday, March 20, 4:45 p.m. | S.B. Central Library

Godmothers Gather: Sarah Shahi, Life Is Lifey

Friday, March 20, 6 p.m. | Godmothers

Storytime at the Sea Center

Saturday, March 21, 10:30 a.m. | S.B. Museum of Natural History Sea Center

Godmothers Gather: Colette Jane Fehr, The Cost of Quiet

Sunday, March 22, 6 p.m. | Godmothers

Author Talk and Signing: Rachel Hochhauser, Lady Tremaine

Monday, March 23, 6 p.m. | Chaucer’s Books

Godmothers Gather: Nicki Sizemore and Jennifer Freed, Mind, Body, Spirit, Food

Monday, March 23, 6 p.m. | Godmothers

S.B. SPOTLIGHT

We at the Independent get many books sent to us by area authors, sometimes too many! It’s practically impossible for us to read and review them all, but just because we are busy bees does not mean that they aren’t worth the attention. In an attempt to not completely drop the ball, we have compiled a list of books here that are either written by a Santa Barbara author, feature someone in our community, or have another tie to Santa Barbara. I urge you to look through this list. Perhaps you will find your new favorite read!

The following are the most recent titles that have been sent to us.

How to Cheat at Golf (and Maybe Get Away with It) by JD Miller

Irreversible: What Can We Do? by Craig B. Smith and William D. Fletcher

If you are a local author and would like us to feature your book in this section, please email allbooked@independent.com with the subject line “S.B. Spotlight.”

Book Reviews Courtesy of CALIFORNIA REVIEW OF BOOKS*

Thanks to the generous contributions of David Starkey, Brian Tanguay and their team of reviewers at California Review of Books, we are able to provide a steady stream of book reviews via our content partnership. Recent reviews at Independent.com include:

The Lies of the Artists: Essays on Italian Art, 1450-1750 by Ingrid D. Rowland; review by David Starkey

*At the present time, all of the Independent’s book reviews are provided in collaboration with California Review of Books (calirb.com).