Is this romance or historical romance or historical fantasy with romance?
Charles's books - like so many of my favorite stories do - straddle the line between stories about people in relationships and stories about saving the world through meeting one another. Drawing that line is...productive, I suppose, but the line itself feels squashy and like it depends more on what sort of emotions the relationships are designed to elicit in the reader. More to think about there, but let's be real, the best novels of any kind are when the protagonists come together to save humankind. Especially romance.