The big trends in popular literature come in waves. About 20 years ago, Twilight ushered in paranormal romance, followed a couple years later by The Hunger Games and the YA dystopian wave. A recent wave has been fairy romances, plus some dragons here and there. There’s also been a pocket for cozy fantasy, and many micro-trends besides.

Well, we’re about to see a new trend: knights. And I’m not just saying this because of Chappell Roan’s VMAs performance, though it fits the vibe immaculately.

2025 has several knight books lined up.

In January of this year, I read one of my favorite short stories ever, The Six Deaths of the Saint by Alix Harrow. It follows a lady knight stuck in a time loop, and it’s amazing. And guess what? We’re getting the full-length version next year.

And that’s not all. Rachel Gillig (the author of One Dark Window, another recent fave) has just released the cover for her knight book that’s also due out in 2025, The Knight and the Moth, which will follow a prophetess and the knight whose future she can’t see.

I’ve also just been approved to read the ARC for The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling, who wrote The Death of Jane Lawrence (a book that’s been on my TBR shelf for some time). It’s a horror fantasy taking place in a castle under siege, following a lady knight, a nun-turned-sorceress, and a serving girl.

And these are just the ones I already knew about. A quick google search also turned up Lady’s Knight by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner. This one is billed as a queer My Lady Jane-esque romp following a woman with knightly ambitions and the lady she fights for in a tournament.

So, what’s the deal with knights?

I follow Alix Harrow on social media, and she speculated in her Instagram stories a while back that the zeitgeist might be collectively leaning toward medieval knights as these stories traditionally tend to draw clear lines between good and evil. Essentially, the real world is so convoluted and twisted that knight stories could provide some escapism.

Personally, I think the concept of knights also harkens back to some engrained sense of glory, bravery, or chivalry, in a way. In today’s world, there’s a lot of people online sharing their dating horror stories or commiserating on a bad dating scene. Coupled with the mundanity of regular jobs or working from home, it makes sense that the idea of being or having the hero/heroine may be particularly attractive these days.

Of course, this is just speculation. But there’s something to be said about the unique combination of AI, fake news, wars and genocide abroad, chaotic elections, online dating, and the loneliness epidemic that make up some of today’s reality. A lot of lines feel blurred. Stories that follow war heroes in shining armor who wield swords, set in magical worlds where good and evil are clearly defined, could be the balm to our burns.

We’ll see if this trend pans out in the long term, but so far I’m liking the odds.