Dear readers, the strength it is costing me to write this column rather than explore another magical realm with a tall, dark, handsome stranger is truly superhuman.

I may, in fact, be a fae warrior myself.

To be clear, fantasy is not my usual style. I grew up on Looking for Alibrandi and Hating Alison Ashley and matured into Bridget Jones and Stephanie Plum. I had a brief love affair with P.G. Wodehouse, and my favourite “comfort” reads are either Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, or Harry Potter.

Basically, I’m all over the place. I’m “genre-fluid”.

But I’m also a millennial, which means I was raised by old school Disney, matured into Twilight, and ended up tragically addicted to social media.

It’s not surprising, therefore, that I’ve been sucked directly into romantasy’s vortex.

One of the fastest-growing genres of the book world, romantasy is what happens when you take classic formulaic romance like Mills & Boon, and throw it into a washing machine with the Twilight Series, Game of Thrones and Dungeons & Dragons.

And Millennials and Gen Z readers are riding that spin cycle, having the time of our lives.

The recent exponential growth of this curious genre is largely credited to #BookTok – a social media niche of user-generated content discussing, reviewing and recommending books.

To give you an idea, one of romantasy’s most iconic titles – and a common gateway drug for this addiction – Sarah J Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses (referred to as ACOTAR) was first released in 2015, but it wasn’t until #BookTok took off that the series exploded in popularity.

This is how I ended up on my current quest through the nine realms of the cruel, magic-colonised continent of Emarion and Penn Cole’s Everflame series.

I may sound like a geek, but geeks did not lead me on this quest.

No, I was lured into this realm by a former Raiders player sharing book reviews from the cab of a tractor. Naturally.

One of the biggest names in the social zeitgeist, the ever-surprising Luke Bateman, is a professional athlete, media personality, mental health advocate and feminist, who has amassed an epic following for his love of literature, and particularly fantasy.

See? Cool people can like dragons, too.

If the romantasy Gods have not yet blessed you, allow me to give a short initiation.

I don’t want to trivialise the genre. Many of these novels are incredibly well-written, with vivid world-building, intricate plots, gripping story-telling and completely unleashed imaginations.

Many are also one long cliche. Held together by tropes. Threaded with cringe.

And I eat it up. Nom nom nom.

Firstly, our heroes are 18-years-old. In reality, this makes them babies with provisional licences, screen addictions, and still-developing brains. But in romantasy? They’re seasoned assassins with a dark past. Shhh.

Is that a bit weird? Yes. But as #BookTok-ers point out, if the heroes were our age their knees would give way in the first chapter.

Also, everyone’s name has entirely too many consonants, clustered together in an unpronounceable mess, like a cat has walked over the keyboard. Don’t bother trying. Just move on.

Our protagonist is always hyper-independent and strong-willed, whilst also being in desperate need of rescue.

Typically, she’s stuck in an inconceivably tragic situation with no way out. But fortunately, she always comes with at least one survival skill, in which she’s freakishly accomplished.

She’s impossibly poor, but feeds her family by hunting with deadly archery skill. She’s imprisoned and cruelly enslaved, but trained in martial arts thanks to a previous life as an assassin. You get the gist…

Next, the love story is enemies-to-lovers. Exclusively.

The unassuming – probably blonde – love interest who appears in the beginning? Yeah, he’s not it. And he better get ready, because about 700 pages in, he will be reduced to an utterly-disposable plot device, after our protagonist shares a long look with a dark, handsome stranger of questionable intent.

Of course, our protagonist and this really annoying stranger are then annoyingly drawn together to embark on a shared quest. There is simply no other solution. It’s honestly so annoying!

Oh, and on this journey, there is absolutely always only one room left available at the inn. How annoying!

Despite my pisstaking, I love my romantasy captors. They have helped me make time for reading and avoid life’s responsibilities by providing a hearty serve of escapism, immersion, and – okay – maybe a slightly unhealthy side of straight-up dissociation.

If you’re ready to be converted, genre-toppers include Sarah J Maas, Rebecca Yarros and Jennifer L Armentrout.

As for me, I must now return to my enslavement. Please don’t send help.

Unless he has dark magic, a foreboding nature and is, honestly, just so annoying.