Back in the 2010’s, when Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance were hitting the top of the bell curve and romantasy hadn’t yet become the next big thing, a few big name authors placed their bets on sci-fi romance.
While SFR did gain a loyal indie following and continues to be a popular niche genre, it didn’t gain the market that romantasy ended up dominating.
The following three authors are huge in romantasy and/or paranormal romance, but I bet you didn’t even know that their SFR books existed:
1. Stephanie Meyer
Staphanie Meyer helped start the paranormal romance craze with her vampire series, the Twilight Saga. While her sci-fi romance The Host has also been widely read, with over one million ratings on Goodreads, many people outside of Stephanie Meyers’ superfans don’t know this book exists.
In a future where aliens have invaded earth, taking over human hosts, Melanie refuses to give in. Instead, she convinces the alien soul living inside her body to help her track down the man she loves.
This book only averages 3.97 stars out of five on Goodreads, but some readers say it’s actually written more skilfully than the Twilight books. I’m not a huge Twilgiht fangirl myself, but if you’re a fan of Stephanie Meyers’ writing, you may want to check this one out!
2. Amanda Bouchet
I adore bestselling author Amanda Bouchet’s greek-mythology-based romantasy series, The Kingmaker Chronicles, but I liked her sci-fi romance Nightchaser evern better.
Rebel captain Tess gets involved with mechanic Shade, not knowing he’s a bounty hunter out to capture her to win back his lost empire.
Starbreaker, the second book in the Endeavor series, is on my TBR. But I had heard the series was supposed to be a trilogy, and I noticed there are only two books available.
I did some digging and found out on Reddit that the third book, rumoured to be entitled Dawnmaker, was never published. It apparently went up on Goodreads but never shipped to stores. Sadly, even though the Endeavor series had a loyal following, it seems the series didn’t gain enough popularity to make the publishing costs worth producing the final book.
I’d still recommend Nightchaser both to fans of Amanda Bouchet and to readers of SFR. The story comes to a satisfying enough conclusion in book one to be read as a standalone. Starbreaker is on my TBR, so check back to find out whether it’s worth a read, or whether it suffers too much from middle book syndrome to bother with, especially when the series remains unfinished.
3. Ilona Andrews
Okay, fine. If you’ve been following my blog, you might already know about this one. I may have mentioned Ilona Andrews’ SFR series few times. But only because it’s just that good!
Husband-wife writer duo Ilona Andrews is best known for their paranormal and romantasy series including Kate Daniels, Hidden Legacy, and The Innkeeper Chronicles. But they also write my favourite sci-fi romance world, the Kinsmen Universe, which includes one of my top sci-fi romance novellas of all time, Silver Shark.
Find out all about the kinsmen universe and get my reading recs here.
Overall Takeaway
Sci-fi romance is a very niche genre, but it’s gained a loyal indie following since these big name authors gave it a shot back in the 2010’s. Now, new traditionally published authors are attempting to break out in the genre in exciting and fresh ways.
Sci-fi romance, romantasy, and paranormal romance share a lot in common. So if you like any of those genres, you may want to give these books a try! If you discover you like it, come back to my blog and follow me on social media for more up-to-date recs, reviews, and deals!
Did you already know about any of these famous romantasy authors’ forays into the sci-fi romance world? Have you read any of their SFR’s? If so, what did you think? Let me know in the comments!
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