The Fans Who Made 'Alchemised' a Hit

"When I tell people about the new novel I just finished, the first thing they ask is whether it's sexy. The question is understandable: The book, SenLinYu's Alchemised, is a romance novel adapted from the author's own Harry Potter fan fiction, and both genres are known for featuring sex-leading to the common assumption that their readers are seeking explicit scenes. But Alchemised is not particularly erotic."

"The core relationship is invisible for nearly a third of the novel's 1,000-odd pages, and even the "happily ever after" comes with lots and lots of caveats. (The characters remain marked by harrowing earlier events; in addition to Harry Potter, the original fan fiction took inspiration from The Handmaid's Tale.) Alchemised is more accurately described as a dark fantasy, one that's primarily interested in the ways terrible conditions can challenge one's sense of morality."

"Despite genre complications, just a couple of weeks after Alchemised's release, the book is breaking records: It has become the fastest-selling adult debut novel of the past two decades, selling 300,000 copies in its first week alone. That a romance novel is selling well even as it breaks some of the genre's conventions should not be a surprise. As Rebecca Ackermann wrote earlier this week in The Atlantic, romance has "dominated" publishing recently, in part because of how flexible the category can be."

Alchemised is a nearly 1,000-page dark fantasy that originated as Harry Potter fan fiction and reworks its source into a romance framed by wartime conditions. The book foregrounds war, trauma, and moral compromise rather than erotic content, with the central relationship largely absent through the first third and a fraught "happily ever after." The narrative draws inspiration from The Handmaid's Tale and emphasizes how terrible conditions shape characters' ethics. The novel achieved blockbuster sales, selling 300,000 copies in its first week and becoming the fastest-selling adult debut of the past two decades. The commercial success reflects the flexibility of contemporary romance subgenres such as romantasy and dark romance.

Read at The Atlantic