Tusk Love, the newest novel from the world of Critical Role is here and we have many thoughts about it.
Ever since the second campaign of Critical Role introduced the book to their journey, fans have clamored for a “real” version of Tusk Love. It’s an in-universe romance novel greatly loved by many of Critical Role’s characters, particularly Jester Lavorre. At last, fans wishes were heard and the story has now been fleshed out and brought to life by author Thea Guanzon.
Tusk Love
Written By: Thea Guanzon
Publisher: Random House Worlds
Release date: July 1, 2025
As in the campaign, Tusk Love focuses on the budding romance between Guinevere, a merchant’s daughter, and Oskar, a half-orc who ends up escorting her down the Amber Road to Nicodranas on the Menagerie Coast. This much was known to fans who have seen Critical Role’s second campaign. For those not familiar with the actual play series, the inclusion of Tusk Love started as a joke when the players visited a bookstore that specialized in “smut” and the players pressed Matt Mercer for details regarding titles to be found in the store.
One of the selections offered was Tusk Love. The in-universe story quickly took on a life of its own as the various characters took turns reading it, fleshing out story details and emphasizing the heavy “smut” levels to be found in this story. The fictional novel took on such a life of its own it’s already had a cameo in The Legend of Vox Machina on Prime Video and will surely be featured in the upcoming Mighty Nein animated series.
What I was really curious about with this novel was how Thea Guanzon would take the story frame of Tusk Love and fill it out into a proper story. After all, it’s one thing to make up a brief novel synopsis on the fly during gameplay, it’s quite another to turn that into an actual novel with a fully realized plot.
As it turns out, Tusk Love will exceed the expectations of even the most hardcore of Critters.
First, and perhaps most importantly, Tusk Love is exactly the kind of steamy romance novel it was established to be in the original campaign; with a heavy emphasis on the “steamy.” The character descriptions of both Oskar and Guinevere are almost over-the-top in their details, with very little left to the imagination. This only serves, of course, to make the frequent moments of romance that much spicier. It should also be noted that Guinevere’s reactions to Oskar for the first half of the story are quite funny. It’s easy to see why Jester’s ideas of romance and love developed the way they did, when she had this book as a template.
Something I wasn’t expecting was for so many parts of this book to be so funny. If Tusk Love were to be adapted into a film, it would absolutely be a romantic comedy. Guinevere, in way over her head at the start of the story, displays zero situational awareness skills and the author pushes this to its comedic limit to hilarious effect. Equally amusing, by the way, are Oskar’s attempts to keep Guinevere out of trouble, which go about as well as you think.
What really charms me about this story is how it still fits into the world of Critical Role. The story frequently mentions the capital of Rexxentrum and the pair actually visit Zadash, the scene of many exploits from the Mighty Nein campaign. It’s fun to see a familiar world inhabited by completely new-to-us characters. Even better, one doesn’t have to have seen any episodes of Critical Role or The Legend of Vox Machina to enjoy it. Thea Guanzon provides all the exposition readers need to follow the story being told. Of course if the reader happens to be a Critter, they’ll notice Easter Eggs peppered throughout the story, but it doesn’t hurt the experience if you don’t catch them.
While both Oskar and Guinevere go through significant changes over the course of this story, I found myself particularly drawn to Guinevere’s story arc. This young woman starts off like the stereotypical “helpless damsel in distress” but as the story continues, the reader learns that not only is there more to Guinevere than meets the eye, they watch her grow into and accept her power and it is downright cathartic.
In conclusion, Tusk Love is an amazing story. One that longtime fans of Critical Role and fans of fantasy romance in general will love to read. There’s steamy romance in abundance, magic is everywhere (this is Exandria after all), and you’ll find yourself sucked into the lives of Oskar and Guinevere with no trouble at all.
