Romance with villains, monsters, aliens, elf lords, wizards, robots, demons, gods, cryptids and anything with a Reylo vibe.
Tag: reylo vibe
PRINCESS MONONOKE (Studio Ghibli 1997)
On a journey to find the cure for a Tatarigami’s curse, Ashitaka finds himself in the middle of a war between the forest gods and Tatara, a mining colony. In this quest he also meets San, the Mononoke Hime. (IMBD)
THE DARKANGEL (DARKANGEL TRILOGY #1) by Meredith Ann Pierce
Aeriel is kidnapped by the darkangel, a black-winged vampyre of astounding beauty and youth. In his castle keep, she serves his 13 wives, wraiths whose souls he stole. She must kill him before his next marriage and comes into full power, but is captivated by his magnificent beauty and inner spark of goodness. Will she choose to save humanity or his soul?
You think this is your average YA novel? Think again! First published in 1982 it came long before the supernatural love interest was trending. I read this book as an adult and I never once had the feeling that I couldn’t relate to the young heroine. This trilogy features incredibly imaginative worldbuilding, a wealth of interesting secondary characters and universal themes including love, friendship and betrayal. I was crying by the end and I mean crying, like actual salt water leaking from my eyes.
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I heard you. Sometimes, in silence, at night, I hear the voices of things beyond eyesight, like echoes of ancient songs. I heard your voice, lonely in my dreams—it woke me, so I came. You see, I know how it is when you speak a name into an empty room with no one on earth to answer to it.
–Coren of Sirle, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
Young Sybel, the heiress of powerful wizards, needs the company of no-one outside her gates. In her exquisite stone mansion, she is attended by exotic, magical beasts: Riddle-master Cyrin the boar; the treasure-starved dragon Gyld; Gules the Lyon, tawny master of the Southern Deserts; Ter, the fiercely vengeful falcon; Moriah, feline Lady of the Night. Sybel only lacks the exquisite and mysterious Liralen, which continues to elude her most powerful enchantments.
But Sybel’s solitude is to be shattered when a desperate soldier arrives bearing a mysterious child. Soon Sybel will discover that the world of men is full of love, deceit, and the temptations of vast power.
–Amazon Summary
Despite it being published over 30 years ago, I just read this sophisticated, lyrical, romantic but unsentimental, thematically compelling YA novel for the first time. Not gonna lie, I did get some Reylo vibes here–it’s a coming of age story centered on an isolated heroine, Sybel, with tremendous but untested power. Furthermore, this book portrays an attempted “mind rape”, and I have to say, it could not be further from what went on in the Reylo interrogation scene. As the above quote suggests, there are also themes of loneliness and neglect that fuel the relationship between the protagonist and her love interest, much like Rey and Kylo.
Thematically, the novel explores how and why one so powerful (and even ones not so powerful) could be used and abused to further the machinations of man. It also does not shy away from pointing out how even the best of intentions can be interpreted as abusive and does not back down from portraying a heroine capable of the very real human failing of holding others to a double standard. Against a really simple but beautiful metaphor, Sybel ultimately learns that one cannot merely survive one’s fears by staring them in the face, but also must accept them as part of herself. It’s also some of the best feminist YA fiction I’ve read in recent years and deals considerably (though not overtly) with the role of consent and choice as well as puts forth thoughtful ideas about captivity and free will.
Anyway, it was a terrific read and if you like lyrical, nuanced prose and dialogue that is by turns delicate and unsentimental, romantic but fierce, ambiguous while also direct, then this is highly recommended.
I love Patricia A. McKillip and often thought that her books have that dark fairy tale vibe which always reminds me of the reylo dynamic.
I haven’t read this one yet but I can wholeheartedly recommend this author. Her writing is pure magic.
Further recommendations by this author:
The Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy
Ombria in Shadow
In the Forests of Serre
Alphabet of Thorn
The Changeling Sea (This one had the most reylo vibes for me.)
I’m guessing Winter Rose should have a strong reylo vibe as well. I’ve yet to read it but I know it’s an adaption of the Tam Lin tale which also may have been an inspiration for the dynamic between Rey and Kylo/Ben.
OMG @fuck-yeah-monsters-and-villains, if you love this author you have got to read Forgotten Beasts soon! Apart from anything Reylo, it’s just a splendid and emotional read.
The Changeling Sea was a book on my reading list for awhile, so I’m reading that now, and I strongly second your “most Reylo” comparison thus far, especially at times when Peri, the female protagonist, hopes to “give the sea indigestion” by throwing a jagged ball of glass and metal junk into it. That’s so Scavenger Rey to me lol.
Ha, yes that part was great. I’ve almost forgotten about that bcause it’s been a while since I last read a book by her. I best remember the bittersweet and yet uplifting ending of the Changeling Sea.
The forgotten Beasts of Eld has been on my reading list for a while and this post has definitely been a incentive to pick it up soon.☺
I heard you. Sometimes, in silence, at night, I hear the voices of things beyond eyesight, like echoes of ancient songs. I heard your voice, lonely in my dreams—it woke me, so I came. You see, I know how it is when you speak a name into an empty room with no one on earth to answer to it.
–Coren of Sirle, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
Young Sybel, the heiress of powerful wizards, needs the company of no-one outside her gates. In her exquisite stone mansion, she is attended by exotic, magical beasts: Riddle-master Cyrin the boar; the treasure-starved dragon Gyld; Gules the Lyon, tawny master of the Southern Deserts; Ter, the fiercely vengeful falcon; Moriah, feline Lady of the Night. Sybel only lacks the exquisite and mysterious Liralen, which continues to elude her most powerful enchantments.
But Sybel’s solitude is to be shattered when a desperate soldier arrives bearing a mysterious child. Soon Sybel will discover that the world of men is full of love, deceit, and the temptations of vast power.
–Amazon Summary
Despite it being published over 30 years ago, I just read this sophisticated, lyrical, romantic but unsentimental, thematically compelling YA novel for the first time. Not gonna lie, I did get some Reylo vibes here–it’s a coming of age story centered on an isolated heroine, Sybel, with tremendous but untested power. Furthermore, this book portrays an attempted “mind rape”, and I have to say, it could not be further from what went on in the Reylo interrogation scene. As the above quote suggests, there are also themes of loneliness and neglect that fuel the relationship between the protagonist and her love interest, much like Rey and Kylo.
Thematically, the novel explores how and why one so powerful (and even ones not so powerful) could be used and abused to further the machinations of man. It also does not shy away from pointing out how even the best of intentions can be interpreted as abusive and does not back down from portraying a heroine capable of the very real human failing of holding others to a double standard. Against a really simple but beautiful metaphor, Sybel ultimately learns that one cannot merely survive one’s fears by staring them in the face, but also must accept them as part of herself. It’s also some of the best feminist YA fiction I’ve read in recent years and deals considerably (though not overtly) with the role of consent and choice as well as puts forth thoughtful ideas about captivity and free will.
Anyway, it was a terrific read and if you like lyrical, nuanced prose and dialogue that is by turns delicate and unsentimental, romantic but fierce, ambiguous while also direct, then this is highly recommended.
I love Patricia A. McKillip and often thought that her books have that dark fairy tale vibe which always reminds me of the reylo dynamic.
I haven’t read this one yet but I can wholeheartedly recommend this author. Her writing is pure magic.
Further recommendations by this author:
The Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy
Ombria in Shadow
In the Forests of Serre
Alphabet of Thorn
The Changeling Sea (This one had the most reylo vibes for me.)
I’m guessing Winter Rose should have a strong reylo vibe as well. I’ve yet to read it but I know it’s an adaption of the Tam Lin tale which also may have been an inspiration for the dynamic between Rey and Kylo/Ben.
Monsters and Villains 