Cosy, Spicy or Clean - Talking Genre 2a
I am currently reading and writing “cosy”. Over the last year or so cosy (with spicy and clean) are trending in a large readership mind. After discussing my own definitions of fantasy vs magical realism in Talking Genre 1, I am now tackling the expected atmosphere and tropes of adding these subgenres to the mix.
The Spice and Romantasy
Recently the romantasy subcategory hit the tops of most commercial genre hit lists. Most readers became aware of romantasy thanks to the #booktok hash-trends of 2023 and 2024, which is when Rebecca Yarros, Jennifer L. Armentrout and Sarah J Maas found fame with their book series beginnings: Fourth Wing, From Blood and Ash and A Court of Thorns and Roses respectively. Several of those authors have now announced they have television or streaming contracts.
Actually the term “romantasy” was first added to the Urban Dictionary in 2008, years before the above novels caught fire. Stories combining fantasy and romance are nothing new, but what these titles did do was introduce the “spice” quotiant to the mix.
These romantasys contain a lot of erotic or detailed sexual content. But possibly to reduce the NFSW or NSFW repercussions, readers started to label these reads with the term “spicy”.
Some of us will well remember 2011 when E.L. Jame’s 50 Shades of Grey caught huge media coverage and readership levels. Originally written as fanfic based on Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series (2000’s) both series can claim to have added some spice or sexual content to either the romance or fantasy genres respectively.
And now booktok has happened.
Cosy & Clean
In terms of sensory elements, cosy and spicy are deemed opposites. As google suggests -
"Cosy" and "spicy" represent contrasting sensory experiences. "Cosy" evokes feelings of warmth, comfort, and snugness, often associated with a relaxed and inviting atmosphere. "Spicy," on the other hand, refers to a stimulating and pungent sensation, typically associated with food or fragrance.
In fiction terms, cosy and spicy aren’t quite so oppositional. Whereas cosy speaks to an overall atmosphere and tone applied throughout story, the terms “spicy” and “clean” are the opposing terms applied normally to romantic and sometimes violence levels within the story. You can have a cosy novel that is either clean or (a little) spicy.
In early 2025 I’d accidentally stumbled onto a series which I eventually recognised as a “reverse harem” series - another sub-sub-sub-genre of romance and other genres including in this case fantasy/magical realism. Yes, the spice was certainly in there, but eventually - and certainly in a longer series, you as a reader start to see the author's own personal and repetitive preferences playing out in all those sex scenes, And for whatever reason, my soul wanted some calmer reading.
Perhaps, like many other (possibly female) readers, the state of the world just made me look for safety in my escapism. I needed to cocoon, to throwback to places and communities where I could believe the world would still exist outside of the reality of idiotic politicians and horrible wars.
Cosy is a subgenre or style applied to several different toplevel genres. But one is more prevalent - that’s mystery. Cosy Mysteries are not at all a new thing. Think back to many of our bumbling amateur sleuths our television programming was peppered with through the 1980’s onwards. These programmes were normally set in a small town or quaint village, and the investigating main character rarely had any high stakes on the line, they just had somebody else’s murder to solve. The best (in my opinion) built a team around the main character and as a viewer I was invested in having their reasonably small and common issues resolved also.
Examples recently are Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club (which is coming out as a streaming series this very month) and Alexander McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.
Once we add cosy to a genre the focus goes to character, and a mundane but comfortable setting. This can be set historically or in contemporary life, it just has to be a place with a tight community that we would feel comfortable living in, and with a quirky set of characters all who have their own problems.
Cosy Fantasy is quite a recent development. Again, the emphasis is on community, characters and a cosy setting. The fantasy aspect takes more of a back seat. Two titles held up as examples are Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree and The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna. Legends & Lattes is set in a fantasy world, but Secret Society is set in contemporary life.
Cosy and Clean go hand in hand. The format certainly allows for a romance, but much cleaner than the spicier erotic romantasies out there, and often a slow burn (yet another term as trope).
Clean is a newer label I’ve noticed more recently. Cosy is a seperate style, to do with the atmosphere and tropes of a novel. Whereas the term “clean” is used as opposition to spice.
Like anything, however, both terms cosy or clean are within debate, simply due to personal preferences. On any of the reading forums where a reader asks, say, for recommended cosy or clean fantasy reads, they will get a plethora of recommendations, and then warning comments from others that such-and-such book has hinted domestic violence, or a dark past for the main character, or contains stakes like threatened life which others consider may not be what the OP was asking for.
Yet we also now have Cosy Horror. Using my definition that would be a cosy style and atmosphere but with specific horror tropes. Supernatural creatures such as demons, werewolves etc, who are want to perform acts of violence. Even some where Gods don’t care about their mischief and acts upon humans. If it’s within a cosy environment you can normally be assured that the errant ways of these horror characters are drastically demolished by living within a kinder community. It’s a moralistic tale of the power of humanity to wear out the beast. The Clovenhoof series by Heide Goody and Iain Grant has Satan as the main character. Clovenhoof finds himself in a small English town, and despite some often criminal and immoral shenigans, eventually finds his found family. Speaking of cosy tropes -
Cosy Tropes
Given the above problems with individual preferences or levels of tolerance of some portions of what “cosy” means, I have my own list (both as a reader and writer) of cosy tropes for fantasy.
As this post has gotten far too long, I’ll save the list of tropes for another post. You’ll find it in Part 2b of Talking Genre.
I’ve provided a list of my favourite books which come under the Cosy Fantasy or Cosy Magical Realism genres.
