READERS GUIDE
A Conversation with Máire RocheIn your own words, tell us what Bromantasy is about.
Well, the book started with a compost fire and ends with a joke that could be a reference to finding Nemo. It’s important that you know both of these things before we even begin. Spiritually, Bromantasy is what would happen if you dropped David Rose from Schitt’s Creek into a fantasy world he’s underqualified for.
Bromantasy is a story about two childhood best friends, Mo and Juniper, who live in a cozy cottage on their farm, where they grow vegetables and tend their sheep (and their orange cat, Mumford). Unfortunately, they’re also madly in love and nobody’s talking about it. Instead, they go to the local tavern and drink mead—where one fateful day, Juniper gets into a drunken brawl and accidentally gets himself signed up for a quest to hunt a dragon. Mo, ever the loyal and totally platonic friend, joins him.
From there, everything goes haywire. They meet a heroic prince who might secretly be villainous (despite being very handsome), a dangerous dragon who might just be a shape-shifting little girl, and sleep on too many tragically damp bedrolls. Juniper hates camping a lot for someone who ended up on a quest, and we love that for him.
Ultimately, though, the heart of Bromantasy is queer joy and the family we find in unexpected places. I hope readers who love fantasy, tropes, queer love stories, and making fun of corporate lingo all find their way to Bromantasy! It was such a fun combination of all my favorite things, and I’m so eager for readers to meet Mo and Juniper (and even Bill).
Bromantasy leans into romance readers’ favorite tropes, like friends-to-lovers and opposites-attract. Which ones do you find the most fun to write, and what do you think makes them so appealing to readers?
I am a trope-lover at heart, and I especially deeply love the “only one bed” trope, even if I would absolutely hate it in real life. Forced proximity? I’d rather go to the moon. We have to be cramped into a small bed? Thanks, I’ll be sleeping outside. But in fiction? You can pry that trope out of my cold, dead hands, no matter how many times it’s used.
The nickname trope in all its forms also has me on the floor, no matter what subgenre of romance we’re talking about, from sports romance to the darkest romantasy. If one character has a nickname for the other that only they call them—and then they call that nickname out in a tone of panic when the stakes are high? Or call them by their real name for the first time in ages? If I can find a way to make a nickname work in a book, I will take it.
As far as why tropes appeal to readers, I think it’s the fact that they really appeal to core fantasies that speak to why we love romance and romantasy as a genre.
Bromantasy is filled with whimsical details, from lush forests to fearsome monsters. How did you approach worldbuilding while still keeping the story cozy, humorous, and deeply character-driven?
It’s hard for me to create a story without understanding the land the story takes place on. That’s the first character for me, and before I ever start writing the actual story I will share with my agent or editor, I write a lot of core scenes from the POV of the land itself. What does the forest think of what’s happening? What about the river? There’s even a scene from the POV of a badger (iykyk).
This story is full of fun and quirky characters. Who did you enjoy writing the most? Why?
Juniper would hate this answer with all his heart, but unfortunately I had the most fun with Bill. He’s so funny and petty and messy, and I fear I have thousands of words of backstory about this particular character. Before Juniper and Mo ever got involved in the dragon quest, Bill was the first person from their hometown to go on a quest, one (supposedly) involving werewolves. While the details of his quest aren’t relevant to Bromantasy’s story, I had so much fun imagining where his quest took him, what he still refuses to talk about, and all the small things that make him exactly like Juniper. Like I said, Juniper would really hate this answer.
Mo and Juniper couldn’t be more different, but their connection is undeniably strong. How would you describe the key similarities and differences between them? And what is it about their dynamic that makes them such a perfect pair?
See, I think Mo and Juniper are actually so similar. Juniper is overtly dramatic in his narrative voice, but you know what else is diva shit? Signing up for a quest instead of talking about your feelings. Mo and Juniper also share a lot of love for the land they care for and the animals that reside there, and it’s that shared empathy and openness they have that allows them to make space for new truths about dragons, when other people in the story are more close-minded.
Something I also love about Juniper is how competent he actually is (regardless of what he believes about himself). At the beginning of the novel, he believes Mo to be this endlessly competent, brave human, and totally undercuts the work he does. They actually do a very equal share of the work on their farm, and throughout the book, Juniper’s ability to track, negotiate, and survive are crucial to their quest. That’s a similarity they share even if Juniper doesn’t see it, but I hope the reader will by the end of the story. I also hope that readers see that even though Mo is extremely competent, there are also so many ways in which he does have real weaknesses where Juniper is strong, and I think that makes them the perfect complement to each other.
If you want a short answer, though, Mo could pick Juniper up, throw him over his shoulder, and carry him to their bed, and that also makes them a perfect pair.
There are so many laugh-out-loud scenes in Bromantasy. What is your approach to writing humor and what was your favorite scene to write?
This one is so hard for me to answer, because my approach was really just “don’t filter your ideas at all.” When I write thrillers, I have to work hard to keep a serious tone, but it doesn’t come naturally to me. I have to filter out the response I would have to a situation. As far as a favorite silly scene to write, I think I have to go with the scene where we first meet Bill. The SMART goals scene is another personal favorite, or any scene in which I got to make fun of corporate-speak, the local constabulary, or a man named Bill.
My favorite people are the ones I can be deeply silly with, and when I wrote Bromantasy, it felt like sitting down and writing down all the things we’ve ever laughed about. It’s been the easiest book by far to write, and I’ve written almost two dozen books.
In so many important ways, Bromantasy is just a love letter to my wife and our beloved communities, to our shared sense of humor, to the ridiculousness of the world we’re surviving against all odds, to always making fun of the king, and to eating cheese about it, no matter what “it” is. And see, right when I’d decided to tell you all about how easy writing humorously comes to me, I turned around and made it heartfelt. But that’s how it goes.
You’ve previously written YA novels and adult mystery/thrillers. Bromantasy, however, is a cozy fantasy. What inspired you to explore a new genre and did the writing process differ from your earlier works?
I read widely across genres, and I always planned to write a fantasy. When I initially explored the genre, I wrote some very lengthy, dark high fantasy that shared a similar tone (as far as high-stakes & darkness) with my thrillers. Ultimately, though, I just couldn’t make things click. Something wasn’t working, and it wasn’t until I decided I could be as silly as I wanted that the words started flowing. Bromantasy was relatively easy to write as a result.
I had so much fun letting the story and characters and silliness go where they wanted. Every day while I was drafting, I would drop a context-free screenshot into various group chats and enjoy watching friends and family react to seeing shared bits in a silly fantasy context.
A major theme in Bromantasy is queer joy. What does queer joy mean to you, and why was it important for you to make it a central focus of the story?
I could write about this topic endlessly, but it’s important to me to write about this while making it clear that the world we live in is incredibly difficult for queer people right now, especially for those who are disabled, Black, Indigenous, or other people of color. While reading escapist, cozy fantasy, it can be easy to avoid looking at what the world we live in is actually like for queer folks. So when I talk about this topic, I want to make it clear that queer joy—mine, yours, Mo & Juniper’s—is deeply political.
There is no queer joy without working for a world where we all are free. While Mo and Juniper’s story is not one about the struggle for queer liberation, it only exists because so many people around the world have engaged in this work and continue to. I am endlessly grateful to have the chance to write about a queer-normative world in which joy is at the center, and I will continue to celebrate each moment of joy queer people can carve out.
I hope that for queer readers, this book is a reprieve, a welcome home, a neon sign saying that you are welcome at my table. Cheers to us.
Have you always been a fantasy reader? And did you look to any cozy fantasy or romantasy novels for inspiration while writing Bromantasy?
Oh, always. I grew up on fantasy classics (I can still remember the way I felt at ten years old, reading Eowyn say “no man am I” and wanting to be her/marry her/write a book about her). There are more recent classics that I’ve loved, like Travis Baldree’s Legends & Lattes series, Julie Leong’s The Teller of Small Fortunes, and, of course, anything Kimberly Lemming writes.
One of my favorite ways to explain where Bromantasy lands in the genre is to describe it as “Shrekulative fiction.” Three separate people who had read the proposal all described it this way to me, independent of each other, and it has absolutely stuck. Cozy fantasy of all stripes is so much fun, and I’ve been loving everything I can get my hands on in this space, but I’m especially delighted to be able to bring something that feels as silly as it feels heartfelt.
As a meme lover, if you had to choose one meme that best represents Bromantasy, which one would it be and why?
Is this an attempt to raid my specially curated selection of memes that has taken years to build? I’m joking. Mostly. As far as Bromantasy goes, though, the meme of the moment is a screenshot of a Threads shitpost that says “you wanna take this outside bro???? you wanna watch the stars with me bro????? confess our feelings under the moon bro?????” If you want to ask me my favorite meme as a person, though, I have a different answer to share and I hope someone asks me that exact question at a book event someday.
If Juniper and Mo were planning their first date, what cheese and mead combo do you think would capture their personalities and relationship dynamic best? Why?
Okay, so if you knew Juniper, you’d know that he has a whole charcuterie board planned and Mo is not allowed to be part of it, because does Mo even know how to make the little meats look like flowers? Does Mo know the difference between a hickory smoked cheese and one cured with oak? Does Mo think about which berries would make the best garnish? No, that is Juniper’s burden to bear. Mo is the one who picks the alcohol, and my wife actually created a Juniper-themed mocktail that I like to think they’d use (though they would definitely go for real gin, because they aren’t on deadline).
What are you working on next?
I have a very special project in the works that’s set in the same world as Bromantasy! If Bromantasy could be summed up as “besties being dumb on a quest,” this next book could be summed up as “enemies being dumb on a boat,” so the single brain cell at work in the kingdom is still a recurring theme. In all seriousness, though, I’m so thrilled to be continuing to explore this lighthearted, queer-normative fantasy world, and I’ll have more to share about that project soon. In other genre spaces, I’m still writing thrillers and mysteries, and I’m especially excited about my upcoming middle grade fantasy Little Monsters, which is a monstrous retelling of Little Women set in modern-day Salem.
Grab a bro (of any gender) to discuss Bromantasy with!
1. Who was your favorite character, and why is it Mumford the cat?
2. Juniper is much more of a homebody while Mo dreams of adventure. Are you Team June or Team Mo?
3. Bromantasy plays with many familiar tropes (“there’s only one bed,” “friends to lovers”): how does it sincerely use them? How does it subvert them?
4. Do you have friendships or relationships where you feel like you’re sharing a single brain cell?
5. Did you feel Mo was justified in his anger at Juniper’s betrayal? Can you understand Juniper’s motives? Why or why not?
6. Was there a scene or turn of events that truly surprised you?
7. Mo and Juniper disagree quite heartily when it comes to their next steps after discovering Bear. What do you think you would have done?
8. What comparisons can you draw between Bill and Phteven, and Juniper and Mo?
9. Bromantasy follows a rich tradition of found family in fantasy novels – how has this trope expanded the character and storytelling possibilities in the genre?
10. If you could take home a single thing from the book (a power, a delicious wedge of cheese, a weapon), what would it be?
