Genre-blending that defies labels: From Romantasy to experimental fiction

What do you call a novel that blends gothic romance, dark academia, political allegory, and a magic system based on linguistic theory? 

In 2025, the answer might be: a bestseller. Genre boundaries are increasingly porous, and today’s readers are embracing the hybrid. Welcome to the era of genre-blending fiction, where labels are looser, rules more elastic, and expectations deliciously disrupted.

When cosy meets cathartic: the revival of WWII family sagas

There is something quietly astonishing about returning to a decades-old series and finding it not only still relevant, but newly resonant. That's precisely what is happening with the revival of Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet Chronicles. I have loved reading these.

It’s no wonder Hilary Mantel said these were the books she told everyone to read, and wondered why she wasn’t as widely read as Jane Austen. Mantel suggested, in a Guardian article, that part of the reason Howard was underrated and underread was because she was a messy modern woman and was judged for it. 

Why we keep coming back to the same books over and over

There are books I’ve read two or three times, and picked up more times. Not out of duty, but from a pull I can’t quite explain. 

They’re not always my favourites in the traditional sense. But they know something about me, or I know something about them. That's the power of rereading.