Monster Romance. Who is it for? What's it all about? This list has a wide variety of romantic stories where the love interest (or interests) range from blue aliens to fish men to psychopaths, ogres, zombies, and more. Oh my.
Monster Romance is a subgenre of romance where one of the love interests is non-human, but still sapient and able to (often enthusiastically) consent. There are (mostly) "happily ever afters" below.
Personally, I like my romance, like most of my reading, with a genre twist (including dark romance), so some of these stories are dear to me. I tried to include romantic stories that cover the whole range of sweet to simmering to spicy. Please take care and look up content warnings before taking the plunge into some of these monstrous waters. I've also included a list of some of the romance tropes included in the title, if those pique your interest.
(Tropes are literary devices, common images and themes, a recurring element or plot device, etc., seen across various types of media. TVTropes.org contains a treasure trove of examples.)
#IndyPLAdults #MonsterRomance #Romance #Fantasy #ScienceFiction #Horror
Original Publish Date: October 25th, 2024
Girl works at shady government lab. Girl meets Fish Boy. Girl and Fish Boy fall in love. Girl must rescue Fish Boy from a terrible fate. Classic love story. The unusual romance is buoyed by brilliant performances by Sally Hawkins and Doug Jones (the…
Briar is trapped in an abusive relationship. She ends up making a deal with a demon: seven years of service to a dragon from another realm and her ex goes bye-bye. Sol the dragon man needs to get married for the good of his territory. Along the way,…
All Cinnamon wanted to do was live her life in peace—maybe get a cat, expand the family spice farm. Really, anything that didn’t involve going on an adventure where an orc might rip her face off. But they say the goddess has favorites, and if so,…
Looking back, this was probably my introduction, or seed planted, for liking the monster romance genre. The Disney one is so very lovely, the soundtrack, the backgrounds, the relationship between Belle and Beast. Truly peak Disney fairy tale…
I love this book so much. (And it's going to be made into an animated film produced by Lilly Wachowski!!) The story follows teen trans boy Benji, who is on the run from his fundamentalist religious cult that infected him with a bioweapon which is…
This romantic black comedy horror film is Zelda Williams' feature length directorial debut. Lisa (played by the awesome newer scream queen Kathryn Newton) is a lonely, troubled girl still reeling from her mother's murder a couple of years ago. She…
This is one of my favorite zombie stories ever (and I love the movie adaptation equally as hard). I remember actually saying, months prior to becoming aware of this title, that I just could never see anyone making a romantic zombie story work. Haha…
What if you took The Left Hand of Darkness and lovingly threw it in a romance blender? This series starts out a bit rough, but the writing is pretty good, in terms of the characters and their growth, and navigating insta-love with more…
This novel-in-verse is a big stylistic and thematic departure from the others in this list, but it does feature a young man named Anthony, who works as a dogcatcher, and the woman he falls for: a werewolf who has abandoned her pack. I really enjoyed…
This is a companion novelization to Guillermo del Toro's acclaimed film, written alone and in tandem with the director. It's actually got some major character differences and extra scenes that are not in the movie, and more of a chance to get in…
All Mina ever wanted was to escape her father's control. Half human, half vampire, she lived eternally torn between two worlds, never fully experiencing the pleasures of either—until her father chose her as the pawn in his latest political move,…
Cavo is a hideous monster with a pure heart. Liam, on the other hand, might look like the perfect gentleman, but he's a beast on the inside, and he has an eccentric personality to boot. When Cavo rescues Liam from an unfortunate situation in the…
Mariel Spark is a witch with a talent for earth and plant magic. Her family believes she's destined to be the most powerful Spark witch in history, so they belittle her skills and push her boundaries constantly. When Mariel accidentally summons a…
This is one of my favorite zombie stories ever (and I love the book it's adapted from equally as hard). R is a zombie who ends up eating the brain of a man who was dating Julie. Now, suddenly, R is starting to feel something again. Can R find his…
Isolde de Lara considers her wedding day her death day. To end a years-long war, she is to marry vampire king, Adrian Aleksandr Vasiliev, and kill him. But her assassination attempt is thwarted and Adrian threatens that if Isolde tries kill him…
Grace comes from a high society witch family with powerful connections. Grace wants nothing to do with them and their manipulative and abusive ways. After another disappointing date that felt more like a business meeting for her parent’s political…
I've featured this adorable graphic novel series on this website several times -- and I'll do it again! In this story, the love interests are both "monsters", werewolves to be exact, and they are just the cutest. Julie is an anxious barista…
This classic monster movie heavily inspired Guillermo del Toro (and his collaborator, Daniel Kraus). I wanted to include it on this list because, like is often the case with older films and under-the-radar queer stories, sometimes it's the…
Oh my biscuits, the premise in most of the books in this series is certainly something. Around all the explicit content, though, they're very sweet. Like in A Deal With A Demon series featured above, I think the characterization, banter, and…
After a wedding cake catastrophe, local decorator Tegan finds herself being helped by a solid wall of fur and fangs named Atlas. She’s never met anyone like him and finds herself enamored by his wolfish charm. After their sweet encounter, Atlas…
