Some had been waiting for two hours. The signing session was sold out before it even started. The reason for this excitement at the 23rd Epinal Festival of Imaginary Literature? The arrival of Rebecca Yarros, new queen of romance, genre which, as its name suggests, mixes romance and fantasy. Fourth Wing500 pages, first part of the trilogy Empyrean including volume II, Iron Flame, has just been published in France, has already sold more than 2 million copies around the world. And Hugo Publishing, its French publisher, has registered the term “romantasy” as a trademark until 2032.
With blonde hair dotted with pink highlights, a round and almost childlike face, the American author, 43, cannot stay in a conference for more than an hour: she suffers from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic tissue disease. connective tissue which makes standing and long interviews difficult. It would only be painfully anecdotal if this illness, which also affects one of her six children, had not pushed her to create a heroine who, too, has the weaknesses of her creator (dizziness, fragile bones, etc.) and will be forced to overcome them.
When Rebecca Yarros decided to launch into romance, she already had a long history of writing. Granddaughter, daughter and wife of a soldier, passionate reader of fantasy more than classics (with the exception ofEast of Eden, she explains), Yarros wrote a first fantasy novel at a very young age that no one would want before branching off into “contemporary romance” and publishing two books per year in this fairly coded genre. She succeeded, without ensuring colossal sales, and wanted to try her hand at sentimental fantasy. His publisher, Entangled, asked him for five novel summaries. She presents them, in order of preference, and it is the third that is chosen.
“He loved the idea of dragons. He told me straight away, ‘if there are dragons, we’ll do it'”, remembers with a laugh this fan of Anne McCaffrey, the author of There Ballad of Pern (1971), great saga featuring legendary creatures. Writing is a challenge: “I put enormous pressure on myself.” Twelve hours of work per day, a 500-page manuscript which turns into a series of five volumes, and a bold launch: 100,000 copies for the first printing. The triumph is at the end. Fourth Wing And Iron Flame follow a young girl dreaming of becoming a scribe. Enrolled by her mother in a school for dragon riders, she meets a handsome boy there who, after exasperating her, will attract her… It is not an earth-shattering novelty, but its treatment, both the construction of the world and that of the characters, far exceeds the average for the genre. The saga also has other assets, as its French editor Dorothy Aubert explains: “Romantasy introduces feeling and makes its heroes evolve in worlds that are more accessible and less developed than those of the enormous sagas in the Iron Throne, where you can’t find your way without maps. There’s no genius in that, just old codes that we’re dusting off.” And it works!
Sub-genre or marketing stunt? Even if it makes fantasy diehards hold their noses, who see it as a strictly commercial phenomenon, Rebecca Yarros attracts crowds. Crowds of readers. In the long lines waiting in front of his stand, few men, even fewer “boomers”. “Romanticism contributes to a feminization of the genre, confirms Dorothy Aubert. There are feminist traces, and even some examples of “queer romance”. There are also many tropes.“Ah the “tropes”… Meaning “stereotype” in English, the “trope” defines a basic situation, easily identifiable, from which the story will develop. And this term is so present today on the networks American literary studies that some libraries now classify books according to their tropes. One of the most famous, the one which is largely based. Fourth Wingit’s the “enemies to lovers” (“from enemies to lovers”), which depicts a relationship based on hatred transforming into love.
There are many others: “Badass Heroin” (“Tough heroine”), “Found family” (“Found family” for novels where the heroes recreate an adopted family among themselves…) “Authors have an interest in not doing anything with these tropes,” notes Pascal Godbillon, director of the Olympe label, maison de romantasy created by the very serious Madrigall group (Gallimard, Flammarion, etc.). Romantasy is thus a mixture of imposed figures and free figures.” There is often sex, more or less torrid (two scenes, one long, one short, in Fourth Wing), but without the SM and toxic excesses of the controversial “dark romance”, a genre that as a reader Yarros admits to reading with pleasure.
And, perhaps the most important point, success is born from a community which operates essentially on the Internet and almost no longer on the usual promotional circuits: press, booksellers… “The readers of romantasy are aware of everything, warns Pascal Godbillon. If they go to a bookstore, it is to look for the desired book and not at all to browse while waiting for advice. Many have even already read the book in original language.” One of the French publishers of the genre, De Saxus, disdains the traditional press in favor of banking everything on the networks and getting their readers to talk about his books. TikTok and Instagram lead the dance, each having their “booktoks”, their “bookstagram”. Sarah J. Maas, one of the pioneers, Jennifer Armentrout, Colleen Hoover, Adam Silvera (one of the rare authors of the genre) have there. made huge “buzz” generating big sales Recently heckled for having, on the one hand, declared that it wanted to be translated into Hebrew despite the Israel-Hamas conflict and, on the other, being incapable of pronouncing the words correctly. Gaelic characters present in large numbers in her novels, Rebecca Yarros claims to “cut herself off” from the networks, but her American publishers play the game to the fullest.
In France too, romanticism is gaining ground. Chris Vuklisevic, recently awarded the Imaginales prize for Tea with ghoststook the pseudonym Ada Vivalda to sign Porcelain under the ruins (Olympe), his debut in the register. “Romance is both very constrained and very creative,” enthuses this great admirer of The Bridgerton Chronicles [NDLR : saga de Julia Quinn devenue une série télé à succès]we can play with it, and it’s very exciting.” Also, she had fun creating erotic tension, by imagining a complicated romantic relationship but without sex and with little action. Confidence of the novelist: “I sprinkled Porcelain under the ruins verbal jousts, twists, all these figures of speech generally in high demand by readers who want, I think, something a little more written.” Among the latter, many teenage girls, but also a whole core of fans aged between 20 and 30 “I undeniably like the genre,” concludes the writer, “but if it is a source of considerable commercial success, it has not yet revealed, it seems to me, any great authors. .” Ada Vivalda, ready to dethrone Rebecca Yarros?
Iron Flame, by Rebecca Yarros, trans. from the American by Karine Forestier. Hugo Publishing, 530 p., €24.
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