Why I Love Monster Romance

People often ask me why I write monster romance. Why orcs? Why gargoyles? Why fussy little Mothkin? Why not write human romances, with their familiar tropes and recognisable heartbreaks? 

The answer is surprisingly simple. 

Because monster romance is rarely about monsters. 

It’s about belonging. The fundamental human need to find a place where we can stop pretending to be someone we’re not.

Most of us know what it feels like to be the odd one out. I certainly do. I was the child who happily disappeared into the library at lunchtime while everyone else seemed to understand the rules of the playground.

Maybe, like me, you never felt like you fit with everyone else. You looked around at your peers comfortable in their own skin, understanding some sort of social code you’d never been taught, and wondered, “What the hell is wrong with me?”

I don’t think that feeling ever completely left me, that nagging thought that whispers, ‘I don’t fit in here.’ For some people, those feelings disappear after school. For others, they linger much longer, following us into adulthood.

The first monster romance I picked up was suggested to me by a fellow artist and Mum friend who knew I ‘had a thing for orcs.’ It was The Half-Orcs’ Maiden Bride by Ruby Dixon, and for the first time I held a book in my hands and thought: someone gets it! Someone understands me.

One of my favourite things about monster romance is that it constantly asks us to reconsider who the outsider is in any given story. Sometimes it is the seven-foot orc with tusks and green skin who can’t walk down a city street without drawing unwanted stares. But sometimes it’s actually the shy librarian who’s spent her whole life feeling invisible, overlooked by everyone around her. Or, sometimes it’s the sea serpent, looking longingly toward land to find his fated mate. It could be the woman who’s spent her entire life trying to become a version of herself everyone else expected, until she’s forgotten who she really is underneath all those unfair demands.

I love that complexity, the recognition that loneliness doesn’t have a particular shape or size. The orc warrior might be feared and avoided, while the human woman might be seen but never truly noticed. Both are invisible in their own way. Both are waiting for someone who will actually see who they are.

That’s the question monster romance keeps asking: what if you didn’t have to change? A seven-foot orc can’t pretend to be human, no matter how much he might want to move through the world unnoticed. A minotaur can’t hide his horns or his size or the way people instinctively step back when he enters a room. A mothkin can’t simply decide to become ordinary and fold away his wings and not stare at lamps. Their differences are impossible to ignore, written into their very bodies. They can’t be hidden with the right outfit or smoothed over with the right words. They are who they are.

And someone falls in love with them anyway. Not despite those differences, as if overlooking a flaw. Not even in spite of them, as if love requires that kind of generosity. But because those differences are part of who they are, inseparable from the person the heroine comes to love. The orc’s strength is what makes him gentle with fragile things. The dragon’s fire is the same fire that warms someone who’s been cold for too long. There’s something incredibly comforting about that, something that speaks to the part of us that’s tired of apologising for taking up space.

One thing I adore about cosy monster romance in particular is that kindness often matters far more than perfection or conventional attractiveness. The hero isn’t loved because he’s handsome by traditional standards; in fact, he usually isn’t. 

I keep returning to orcs because they’re meant to be these feared, ugly brutes who’d rather crush and maim and fight. There’s something endlessly satisfying about taking a creature we’re told to fear and asking whether the real story begins once someone chooses to understand him instead. I like to ask, ‘What if they weren’t all like that?’ What if there was one that was a hopeless mess? An orc who is loved because he’s gentle with someone who’s been handled roughly by the world. He’s patient when she needs time. He’s protective without being possessive. He’s thoughtful in small ways that show he’s actually paying attention to who she is, not who he wants her to be.

Likewise, the heroine often isn’t the most confident person in the room. She doesn’t have to transform herself into someone bold and fearless to deserve love. She simply needs someone to see past whatever armour she’s constructed to get through the day. Someone who notices when she’s tired, who remembers what makes her laugh, who creates space for her to be uncertain or afraid or simply herself without judgment.

That’s what monster romance became for me. Finding the one person who looks at you and says, “You don’t have to become someone else. You don’t have to earn this. You already belong with me.” That simple statement, that unconditional acceptance, is more fantastical than any gargoyle or orc could ever be. I think it’s also the thing we all long for most.

That’s the sort of story I want to write. When I sit down at my desk and open a blank document, I’m not really thinking about tusks or tails or the mechanics of wings. I’m thinking about people who’ve spent a long time believing they don’t fit anywhere, people who’ve made themselves smaller, who’ve been overlooked in favour of someone louder or more conventional, who’ve forgotten somewhere along the way that they’re worthy of a love that says, “You can rest now. You can stop trying so hard. You’re enough.”

That’s why I love monster romance. 

It’s full of extraordinary creatures; beings with tusks and horns, tails and wings. But its greatest magic has always been something wonderfully ordinary, something deeply human. The feeling of being seen. The comfort of being accepted. The joy of discovering that you don’t have to change to deserve love. The profound relief of finally finding someone to call home, no matter who you are or what you look like.