So that’s my two cents on where a lot of cozy fantasy is going wrong. And like, I can kind of see where my colleagues are coming from and why books like this keep being produced these days??? Like the pandemic really fucked up everybody, and so many of us are incredibly burned out and running on fumes… And so sometimes it feels impossibly challenging to write any book except one where nothing bad happens and nothing is in danger and nobody is really bothered or worried about anything and everything is mostly fine and there aren’t any major setbacks…..

But that leaves readers cold. And frankly, I don’t feel like it does much of anything to nourish either our souls or theirs. It feels like eating a bag of potato chips for dinner instead of going to the effort of even just heating up a frozen dinner that has a vegetable in it.

YES this is exactly my problem with these new cozy fantasy books that AREN'T romances. If they're romances they at least have the romantic story beats and that brings the tension and it's just a fun fantasy setting. But otherwise they're just so damn boring.