Before Romantasy Was Romantasy, There Was True Blood. Now Charlaine Harris Is Back.

Charlaine Harris, the writer who gave us Sookie Stackhouse and the books behind True Blood, has announced a new romantasy series. I’m super excited for this one as I adored True Blood the TV show. I didn’t read the book (I know, I know) but considering how iconic Harris is I’m pumped.

The main thing I think that is most interesting about this news is that Harris didn’t even know she was writing a romantasy until someone in the know explained what that is to her. I think that happens a lot to writers who are just incredibly intuitive. Being a good writer doesn’t really mean you know all of the craft rules, or the technical jargon (that’s what editors like me, agents, and publishing teams are for). It means you know how to tell a good story.

Harry has done this before of course, told a good story I mean. She wrote Dead Until Dark when paranormal romance was beginning to boom. Now we’re in the middle of the romantasy boom, and here she’s arriving with a portal fantasy she spent years fantasizing over. So cute. Maybe we’ll see an uptick in portal fantasy. Who knows. I’ve had a theory for a couple of years that we’re on the way to mixing more “real life” characters into romantasy. AKA a Bella Swan situation, but make it romantasy.

Any who. Let’s dive in.

Hold My Spellbook: The Quick Takeaways

• The new book is Hold My Spellbook, book one of a new series called The Stronghold, from Charlaine Harris.
• US publication is February 9, 2027, through Saga Press. The UK edition, from Tor Bramble, is scheduled for February 4.
• It’s portal romantasy. So a modern woman is pulled into a dangerous magical world, where a marriage of convenience might keep her alive.
• Harris developed the idea over several years by telling herself an evolving story at bedtime. She told People that her editor was the one who gave it the portal-romantasy label.

What Is Charlaine Harris’s New Book Hold My Spellbook About?

Hannah has spent years experiencing strange waking dreams of another world. Then a portal appears in her backyard, and she discovers she was swapped at birth to hide her identity. Her name is actually Hannalyn Sevrene, and she belongs to a powerful family of mages. Unfortunately, most of that family has been murdered, and rival houses have plans for whatever magic she might have inherited.

The world is called Augremont, and it has Renaissance-era politics, castles, and competing magical families. In this world, Hannalyn needs protection, and quickly so she joins forces with her warrior half-siblings, Sandlin and Berea, and begins considering an arranged marriage with Malcom Peverel, who has soldiers and ambitions of his own. He wants her bloodline. She would rather not die. Let the romance games begin.

The UK publisher’s description explicitly lists:

• portal fantasy
• strategic marriage
• fated mates
• hidden bloodlines
• forced proximity
• found family
• revenge and he-falls-first among its tropes.

This seems like a great foundation for those coming from contemporary romance, wanting to dip their toe into romantasy.

Where Can You Preorder Hold My Spellbook?

Hold My Spellbook is scheduled for February 9, 2027 in the US and February 4 in the UK. Check the publisher listings for current formats, pricing and retailer links.

Wait, Can Portal Fantasy Be Romantasy?

You betcha. Portal means, character goes through something and arrives in another world. Like Narnia. Romantasy is when romance takes center stage in a fantasy setting. So, even though it’s a portal story, it’s still considered romantasy.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that romantasy isn’t just shadow daddy in a magical world with danger around every corner. It can have other mechanisms too, like portal worlds, paranormal creatures, or modern-styled heroines.

For this new book, we have a modern twist, and I think younger readers in particular are going to love it. And because the romance is a big piece of the plot…hello arranged marriage? It totally fits romance heavy fantasy.

If you’re looking for more romantasy reads check out the hub.

Before Romantasy Was Romantasy, There Was Sookie Stackhouse

Dead Until Dark was published in 2001. Seven years later, HBO’s True Blood arrived and brought Sookie Stackhouse, Bill Compton and Bon Temps to an even bigger audience. Despite its age, the story is still running with tropes readers today love. Supernatural elements, politics, dangerous romance, and a world to escape into.

I love a good murder mystery too, I read thriller’s like nobodies business. And Urban fantasy, at least the kind I fell for, has many a thriller plot keeping everything exciting. So now you know what True Blood brought to the table. Let’s discuss what that meant back then.

In 2011, Harris described moving into paranormal fiction as a bold career decision in Publishers Weekly interview. She remembered there being very few writers doing it at the time, apart from Laurell K. Hamilton. But there were others coming up alongside her. Hamilton’s Anita Blake books started in 1993, Jim Butcher’s Storm Front came out in 2000, and Kelley Armstrong published Bitten in 2001 (I adore Armstrong’s work), the same year as Dead Until Dark. By 2005 Armstrong was well into her Otherworld series and Twilight had been published too (the film came in 2008, alongside True Blood). So although I think Harris was part of a movement rather than out there doing it alone, it was still a brave move for her personally, especially when Dead Until Dark was rejected repeatedly. She knew she’d written something worth fighting for, and she was right.

The Part I Love Most: Harris Wrote the Book in Her Head First, What?

In the People interview announcing the book, Harris explained that Hold My Spellbook began as a story she told herself while going to sleep. I simply love that idea. As the years went on she added new characters, changed the plot a bit, and kept it going. Until of course we have the book complete and ready for publication.

I understand that kind of writing so much, and I’m a bit believer in daydreaming through your stories, and even holding onto scene ideas for a while before writing them. Personally, I’ve had thousands of scenes in my head, particularly when I’m driving or lying in bed, and especially around one particular world I’ve been writing in since I was 18 (not ready to publish, I love the world too much and don’t want the industry to crush it). So, I can imagine other writers know the feeling as well. This obsessive daydream where you see and hear the conversations characters have together in your mind.

You spend so much time with your characters and world it can become almost real.

There’s research suggesting that time away from the desk really can play a role in creativity. In a 2019 study published in Psychological Science, professional writers and physicists reported that around one fifth of their most significant daily ideas occurred during spontaneous mind-wandering. You know, that moment where you go oh my gosh that’s how I fit that plot hole! It’s my absolute favorite feeling, both with editing and writing. And to achieve it, you often have to walk away from the story, and let it fester in the back of your mind for a while.

Of course, you do eventually have to write the book outside of daydreaming and thinking, too. And that brings with it a lot more discipline than new writers may imagine. It’s not always fun to churn out a scene, sometimes it is hard work and a little boring. But all hard work is worth it, when you see the final product.

In the end, Harris’s story is a reminder that you don’t always have to begin with a market gap and sitting at a keyboard all day long. It’s ok to hear the call of a good story, and flow with it. Your mind may have already figured out the gap before you already knew it existed. Especially if you’re an avid reader.

So Is Charlaine Harris Following a Trend, or Did the Trend Find Her Again?

I suspect it’s a bit of both. Harris has been writing commercially for more than forty years, she knows what she is doing. And honestly, how could she not know that romantasy is having a moment? But the delightful story behind this book’s creation makes me reluctant to write it off as a cynical entry into a popular category. Like, oh of course she’s joining that band wagon, all large authors who aren’t usually fantasy writers are.

So, I’m completely keeping my eye on Hold My Spellbook, mostly because I want to see how much of the urban fantasy leaks in. Will it be a full romantasy? Will their be thrills? I need to know.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have about a thousand imaginary scenes to get back to and to many books to read.

If you’re following the older genre favorites returning to shelves, I’ve also been writing about Veronica Roth’s return to Divergent and if you want more bookish news check out the hub.

For the Writers in the Room

As writers, we’re used to hearing a lot of rules around writing. Show, don’t tell; open on the action; dialogue should always have meaning, not just be for fun; and on and on. We hear so much about what we’re doing wrong that we forget that ultimately, writing is about playing. It’s fantasizing, just like you did as a child playing house. That’s how a lot of my writing tools are set up, like the worldbuilding tool, that asks you to imagine what if.

A few things to consider adding to your process if you haven’t:

• Daydream about your characters. Spend time with them outside the manuscript. Enjoy them. Imagine conversations that will never appear in the book, arguments, relationships, and ridiculous situations that you will probably never need. You may be surprised by how much you learn about your world and the people in it.
• Read widely and trust your instincts. Harris has spent decades reading and writing commercial fiction. That will get into your subconscious and give you a sharp eye for what works, even if you never learn the subject explicitly.
• Genre labels are there to help sell your book. You don’t need to know every subgenre before writing a story, and you shouldn’t be looking up “what genre sells” and attempting to write it (unless you have been writing for a long time and read in that genre). The power of your subconscious is what will push your story forward. Sometimes I can guess what is happening in writers’ personal lives, or trauma they have been through, just by reading a short story they wrote, even when that isn’t explicitly named in the story. There’s so much that happens between the page and you that trusting your instincts, and writing what feels right, is what creates the magic.
• Eventually, you do have to write it down. Not enough people tell writers how hard writing actually is. You will hit the 20% mark and think, I don’t even want to do this anymore. Or read things back and say, Why am I so bad at this? I should quit. That is part of the process. You have to push through those feelings and just keep going. The spark will come back.
• Don’t confuse a good idea with a finished story. Your imagination can make everything feel perfectly connected because you’re already familiar with the characters and their world. But you’d be surprised by how many plot holes you can create just writing two chapters. You need a good eye that can catch them for you.

If you’re looking for help getting your story exactly where you need it to be, I’m here to help. Explore my fantasy and romantasy developmental editing services.

FAQ: Charlaine Harris’s New Romantasy