The mission
Give romantasy a home of its own — where readers find exactly what they crave, and the authors who write it are paid fairly for the magic.
Our story
Romantasy became the biggest story in publishing. We built the home it deserved.
Romantasy became the biggest story in publishing — and still had to live in someone else's house. Filed under 'fantasy' in stores built for everything, it deserved discovery shaped by the language and tastes of its own community.
Yearn was founded by Grace Zimmerman and Honey Chawla — two readers who believed the genre deserved its own home, not another corner of a massive marketplace. So they built one: an app where discovery is intentional, curation is human, and the connection between authors and readers is the entire point.
We launched on February 14, 2026. Of course we did.
The vision
A world where the stories you love are easy to discover and genre communities have beautiful, dedicated spaces built in their honor.
What we believe
Six values, held with a straight face
Written down so you can hold us to them.
Author voices matter
Every title comes from a verified author and must reflect meaningful human creativity, craft, and editorial control.
Unashamed
Romantasy readers have endured decades of smirks. Not here. We build for the ache, the swoon, and the spice with a completely straight face — and a knowing smile.
Authors eat first
There is no Yearn without the people who write the words. Fair treatment for indie, self-published, and traditional authors is load-bearing, not optional.
Community over audience
We'd rather introduce two readers who become friends than show one reader a thousand ads. Matching, lists, and discussions exist to make the obsession shared.
Discovery is a craft
Recommendation should feel like a bookseller who knows you. We tag by trope, spice, and magical being because precision is a form of respect.
Taste is the product
Anyone can host a million files. We sweat the curation, the typography, the sleep timer — the thousand small kindnesses that make reading feel like a ritual.
The founders
Two readers with a grudge and a plan
Grace Zimmerman
Co-founder & CEO
Reader-in-chief. Believes a bookstore should know the difference between a slow burn and a scorched earth.
Honey Chawla
Co-founder & CTO
Builds the machinery so the magic doesn't have to think about it. Strong opinions about sync latency and serif fonts.
Yours in magic and kissing,
Grace & Honey
Roadmap
Where the realm goes next
What we've shipped, what we're building, and what we're still dreaming about — shaped directly by reader feedback.
Feb 2026Shipped
Yearn launches
The doors open on Valentine's Day — unlimited romantasy ebooks with trope-first discovery and reader matching.
Jun 2026Shipped
Streaming audiobooks
The library learns to speak: instant audiobook streaming lands, with offline downloads in tow.
Jul 2026Shipped
Sleep timer, hashtag search & mini player
The drift-off chapter gets a safety net, and search learns the language of tropes.
NextBuilding
Deeper community
Richer buddy reads, author Q&As, and reading circles — the court grows louder, in the best way.
SoonBuilding
A wider vault
More lesser-known voices, more high-heat shelves, clearer spice scales — shaped directly by reader feedback.
BeyondDreaming
Every realm, every reader
More platforms, more languages, and tools that let authors build their worlds — and their livelihoods — on Yearn.
Unlimited romantasy from $9.99/month — written by humans, every single word.
Free to download · Cancel anytime · iPhone, iPad, Mac & Vision Pro