Cosy Fantasy

Ever since Legends & Lattes was released to great success in 2022, cosy fantasy has become a major player in the publishing landscape. That is not so say that these sorts of stories are new to the market, more that there has been a shift in audience perception. In recent years, publishers have been buying and publishing books billed as cosy across the anglophone markets, such as Sarah Beth Durst’s The Spellshop, Sydney J. Shields’ Honey Witch or Sangu Mandanna’s The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. There is a Sub-Reddit dedicated to Cosy Fantasy (r/cozyfantasy) with upwards of 38K members. On TikTok, there are over 16 million posts relating to cosy fantasy. But what makes a story cosy, and what makes a cosy story work?

Cosy Fantasy tends to be about personal stakes, showing the reader a slice of its character’s life. You won’t find world-ending scenarios in these, but rather small-scale threats impacting the main characters. Books in this genre focus on relationships - both romantic and found family. In a way, cosy fantasy takes on a lot of what makes romance work. This doesn’t mean that there needs to be a romantic element, but the sense of everything working out fine, despite the looming threats in the story, is key to getting the reader to escape into these worlds. The relationships at the core of such stories are often platonic, putting friendship and found family over a romantic quest (that’s not to say that there isn’t romance!). I personally think that a good cosy fantasy story should be the sort of book that makes you want to curl up under a blanket with a hot drink. Escaping this world and disappearing into one where you know things are going to be fine.

But the thing is, even if you have a slice-of-life story, a great sense of atmosphere and well-developed characters, you do need stakes. These can range in seriousness, as long as they have a clear impact on the characters. Without stakes, the story stalls and there is no reason for the characters to grow. And, if nothing goes wrong or is threatening to go very wrong, we don’t appreciate the good things either. Cosy fantasy still needs to be a compelling story with narrative tension. Within that, I feel like the stories can go dark at times while still being cosy - because they make you care about these characters’ lives while they figure out problems that may well be life-or-death for them personally. Rather controversially, I consider T. Kingfisher to be a brilliant Cosy Fantasy author. Her books can be dark, but the stakes are small-scale and make the reader appreciate the blossoming character relationships, the tangible atmosphere and the expected happy ending.

Cosy fantasy has blossomed in the last few years, and it's been great to see bigger publishers acquiring in this space. On the flip side, this means that the market may be getting saturated and selling a book merely on its cosy premise may not be enough. The stories need to be outstanding - engaging, escapist and with much at stake for their characters.  

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