If you’ve heard of Critical Role, you may be most likely to associate the company with rolling dice or Dungeons & Dragons or Prime Video’s The Legend of Vox Machina animated series, but the latest release brings the adventure from screen to page. Tusk Love, penned by New York Times best-selling author Thea Guanzon, is a spicy romance novel following the adventures of a young woman named Guinevere and Oskar, her half-orc companion.
The novel is set in the world of Exandria that Critical Role fans know well. Key to what works about the book, however, is that readers don’t actually need to know years of Critical Role canon to enjoy the ride. While fantasy fans may be interested in questions like whether orc tusks get in the way when interactions get steamier, newcomers may be invested in what happens when there’s only one bed.
As somebody who is somewhere in the middle when it comes to Critical Role knowledge, this was my experience with Tusk Love and why it leaves me ready for the company's animated Mighty Nein adventure.
Tusk Love by Thea Guanzon
Tusk Love follows the tale of Guinevere, a sheltered merchant’s daughter whose carefully-planned out future is thrown violently off course by bandits. Enter Oskar, an aloof half-orc with a mission of his own after the death of his mother. They couldn’t be more mismatched at first, but as their paths join and sparks begin to fly, the unlikely pair will find that the journey has a lot more to offer than the destination. And if you’re a lover of all the spice and steam that the romance genre tends to offer… well, you won’t be disappointed on that front, tusks and all!
On the whole, Tusk Love isn’t a story that pretends to be Outlander as an epic ongoing romantasy saga, which works in its favor of a reader just going along for the ride with Guinevere and Oskar. The interactions between the main characters are by far the most compelling parts of the story, to the point that even they aren’t really fans of the main plot… with good reason, although I won’t spoil that here.
Possibly my favorite element of the book is honestly that Tusk Love is a fun romantic romp that can be enjoyed without knowing all of the lore from Critical Role’s gameplay and/or Prime Video’s The Legend of Vox Machina. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, so the humor hits well and the tropes are fun. I read it all in one sitting and regret nothing.
Tusk Love isn’t the first novel out of Critical Role, with other options including Marieke Nijkamp’s Kith & Kin and Cassandra Khaw’s What Doesn’t Break, as well as the Vox Machina––Stories Untold compilation of short stories. This is the first in-universe romance novel, however, and the immediate novelty of the hardback copy is actually the cover. The dust jacket is fairly standard on the front side, but flips over to reveal Easter eggs galore for fans of the Dungeons & Dragons campaign that inspired the series, complete with author Matilda Merceria as a nod to DM Matt Mercer.
The Origin Story
Part of why I’m such a fan of Tusk Love not requiring a working knowledge of ten years of Critical Role lore is simply that the origin of the book is tied to the events of the company’s second campaign, The Mighty Nein, and I’m much more familiar with Vox Machina as their first campaign.
The origin of Tusk Love in Campaign 2 goes back to a romance novel book title that DM Matt Mercer seemingly came up with on the fly, which Jester (voiced by The Last of Us Part II’s Laura Bailey) ran with, to the chagrin of the half-orc Fjord (voiced by Avengers Assemble’s Travis Willingham). Part of the fun was that Bailey and Willingham are married in real life, and Matilda Merceria’s romance novel became a much bigger deal than Mercer could have predicted.
A running joke in the campaign was that Tusk Love was… well, not a good book despite Jester’s enthusiasm. Fortunately, Thea Guanzon didn’t lean into that element of the source material.
Why I'm Now More Excited For The Mighty Nein
So, what does any of this have to do with Amazon Prime’s upcoming Mighty Nein animated series? Well, doing my research on Tusk Love’s origin story exposed me to the characters I hadn’t gotten to know while covering The Legend of Vox Machina and that saga’s spiciest scenes, which also happen to include Laura Bailey. (You can find LOVM streaming with a Prime Video subscription now.)
I’m not spoiled on all things Mighty Nein, but I do now have more context for why so many Critical Role fans were hyped about the animation first look that was released alongside Vox Machina’s Season 3 first look in July 2024. If you missed it, check it out:
I’m also curious now to see if Tusk Love is included in the animated show, and whether any excerpts will come from Thea Guanzon’s real-life novel or the version that Jester loved in the campaign. The brief summary for Mighty Nein that released along with the first look revealed:
Mighty Nein follows a group of criminals and misfits who are the only ones that can prevent the kingdom from plunging into chaos when an arcane artifact capable of reshaping reality falls into the wrong hands.
Whatever happens, it seems that the adventurers have very different problems than the vampirism, necromancy, and dragon rampages that plagued Vox Machina in their first three seasons! In addition to Laura Bailey and Travis Willingham, The Mighty Nein will star fellow Critical Role founding members Taliesin Jaffe, Ashley Johnson, Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, and presumably Matt Mercer voicing side characters galore to follow in grand Legend of Vox Machina tradition.
No release date has been confirmed for The Might Nein at the time of writing, but Thea Guanzon’s Tusk Love will be available in hardback, audio, and digital versions on July 1. I’d recommend the hardback for fans of the campaign, since the art from Jester on the reverse side of the dust cover was quite cool to check out, and that’s coming from somebody who currently doesn’t know all the lore behind it.
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