Cozy fantasy: the genre that just wants you comfortable

Somewhere between the dragons and the doom, a quieter kind of fantasy has taken over readers' nightstands. Cozy fantasy trades world-ending stakes for something smaller and warmer: a found family, a quiet magic, a life worth building.

The genre's breakout was Travis Baldree's Legends and Lattes, in which a battle-weary orc retires from adventuring to open a coffee shop, and the biggest conflict is whether the espresso machine will work. It reads like a hug. TJ Klune's The House in the Cerulean Sea does the same for a lonely caseworker and a houseful of magical orphans.

But cozy doesn't have to mean weightless. Katherine Arden's The Bear and the Nightingale wraps its warmth in the deep snow and old spirits of medieval Russia. Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus is all wonder and slow-burning romance. And V.E. Schwab's The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue aches even as it enchants.

What these books share is generosity toward the reader. After a decade of grimdark, cozy fantasy is a genre that simply wants you to feel better when you close it.