When the Ripped Bodice in Culver City, Calif., opened its doors in 2016, it was the nation’s first and only romance bookstore. It wasn’t until 2019 that a second such store, Love’s Sweet Arrow in Chicago, entered the fray, and for a while, new competitors were few and far between. But during the pandemic, something changed: sales of romance novels spiked and publishers pivoted to meet the seemingly insatiable demand.

Now, bookstores dedicated entirely to romance are proliferating at a dizzying pace—and not just in metropolitan hubs. The American Booksellers Association reports that in the past three years, 232 bricks-and-mortar and mobile romance bookstores have opened across the U.S., from Bardstown, Ky., to Anchorage, Alaska. At least 54 stores have opened so far this year. (That figure is on track with last year, when 120 stores debuted, and significantly up from 58 total in 2024.)

Behind this surge is a new generation of booksellers—nearly all women, many in small towns—who believe in the power of bookstores as third spaces (that is, gathering places outside of the home, workplace, or school) where like-minded people can forge connections. These spaces, they say, are especially important for women living in remote or socially conservative communities, where access to books by and about women—not to mention frank conversations about love, sex, and romance—can be hard to come by.

For Cheryl Keffer, opening La Petite Mort Books in Cockeysville, Md., this past March was “an act of resistance.”

“What is more subversive than women gathering to talk about books and sex?” she asks. “I needed to channel my rage and build community and decided that I’d fill a void in a book desert while I was at it.” Business, she adds, has been “amazing”—a sentiment echoed by almost every bookseller PW spoke with.

Aside from selling steamy reads, La Petite Mort hosts a number of book clubs, and one of its most popular in-store events is the “un–book club,” which Keffer describes as “a monthly Friday night hangout for people to chat about books, or whatever else comes up.”

And though Keffer created the store for romance-loving women readers, she quickly grasped its utility to the larger community: it now hosts various nonliterary programs, including Dungeons & Dragons sessions, mahjong games, and craft nights.

“It can be isolating out in the suburbs, and especially hard to make friends as adults,” Keffer says. “Indie bookstores can help.”

Olivia Pack and her husband Mason Pack, who opened Forbidden Love in Bemidji, Minn., in April, are taking a similar approach. “We are much more than just a bookstore,” Olivia says, noting that the store is investing heavily in hosting community events, including audiobook walks, silent reading nights, and even an in-store pop-up hosted by a local jeweler.

Meanwhile, though BookTok has helped cultivate a large and devoted romance readership, more booksellers are looking to take the genre’s active fandom offline.

“I wanted to build that community in my area,” says Brianna Biri, who opened For the Plot in Cape Girardeau, Mo., last month. Strategically placed couches in the store, for instance, encourage customers “to hang out, rather than just get what they want and go,” she says. “I want it to feel like you’re visiting a friend’s house rather than a bookstore.”

Another way to encourage customers to linger, many romance booksellers have discovered, is to pair steamy reads with refreshments. Sweet Reads Society in Newton Falls, Ohio, which opened in March, offers stuffed cookies, coffee, and “dirty sodas” alongside books; Verse & Vine, a bookstore and wine lounge, opened earlier this month in Poulsbo, Wash.; and X&O Books in Cypress, Tex., which will open its doors July 25, will feature a “drink parlor.”

The timing of the romance bookstore boom also coincides with a mainstream embrace of the romance genre, which has long been stigmatized as lowbrow. Biri says she opened For the Plot with the aim of creating a space “where romance wasn’t tucked away in the corner or treated like a guilty pleasure,” adding, “I wanted a store where romance readers walked in and immediately felt like they belonged.”

Alex Tenlen recalls that when she an-nounced plans to open a romance bookstore in Riverton, Wyo., some expressed disbelief that it could be financially sustainable. “People underestimate the buying power of women,” she says. “I know what women like to spend money on, I know what they actually do spend money on, and I know that women have money to spend.” She adds that customers
from all over Wyoming swarmed Lioness Lane during its opening weekend in February.

The country’s newest romance bookstore, Love and Lore Books in Huntington, Utah, opened its doors earlier this month. It serves a rural part of the state, says owner Shaylee Allred, where people previously had to drive an hour to the nearest Walmart to buy a book.

“Our community needs a bookstore,” Allred explains. “The only hiccup is that a romance bookstore won’t serve the entire community.” (Love and Lore also stocks a small selection in other genres to appeal to a wider array of readers.)

Allred’s point is well taken: the past few years have seen a rise in niche bookstores specializing not just in romance but also in horror, fantasy, and cookbooks. In book deserts like Huntington, do bookstores have an obligation to serve a wider audience?

Not necessarily, says Allred, who feels her store’s specialization and its location go hand in hand. Romance bookstores, she believes, are particularly important in rural Utah, where conservative values hold fast.

“Some things can be taboo in Utah, and some people really struggle with that stuff,” Allred says. “Exposure is good—and romance is one of the bestselling genres for a reason. It and the people who read it should be represented, especially in a small community.”