Consider This from NPR - Love Is In The Air—And On The Shelves

Episode Date: February 14, 2023

Sales of romance novels were up in 2022, with a surge of about 52 percent for sales of print copies, according to Publishers Weekly. That's despite an overall dip in book sales last year.Still, there's a longstanding social stigma against romance novels, as they're often written off as frivolous, or even shameful.NPR's Juana Summers visits a group of readers who are loud and proud about their love for the genre. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

They say you should never judge a book by its cover, but for a lot of people, that's exactly what they do when they see a romance novel. The typical ones that I think a lot of people consider a generic romance novel are ripped bodiced covers where you have a couple possibly kissing or at least their hands or hers are on his chest, his are on her hips. A lot of the times his shirt is undone so that you can see his abs. And that is what you consider like a typical one. That's Willow Winters, and she knows a thing or two about romance novels. She's written and self-published over 50 of them, and she says a lot of thought goes into those covers. From the colors to the type of font that is used, you'll notice a lot of rom-coms have pinks or blues, whereas a lot of darker romances tend to have reds and blacks. The sharper the

font, the more dark and intense the book inside generally is. And these might not be things that even readers recognize right away, but there's something that's reminiscent about the colors and about the font that tells you this is what's going to be inside. Winters does publish some of her books with those quote-unquote traditional covers, but she also offers readers books with covers that are less risque, which she calls her discreet series. Not everybody can walk around with a, you know, shirtless man on the book or not everybody feels comfortable with it. Books in the Discrete series have covers that are one solid color, the title embossed, a simple decorative rose drawing in the corner. And that's it. It's the shade of the color on the cover that gives you an idea of what's inside. I made sure that they were color-coded by darkness.

So I have everything from light pinks to nearly black. And you know that the darker the color, the darker the content. So if you want a small-town romance, go for a light one. And if you're looking for something like a serial killer love triangle, go towards those dark grays. Winter's discreet covers have gotten a lot of positive feedback from readers, with many fans thankful they can freely enjoy their romance novels without fear of judgmental onlookers.

She says it's frustrating that some people feel that way. There's an absolute stigma around the romance genre that has existed since its creation. And I think a part of that is because it's primarily written by women for women. And people don't seem to see value there when it aids a tremendous, a tremendous value, especially for women. Consider this. Despite the fact that romance novels are beloved by millions of readers, there is a lingering stigma attached to the genre, which is sometimes dismissed as frivolous or shameful. Coming up, we meet a group of readers who are loud and proud about their love for this genre. From NPR, I'm Juana Summers. It's Valentine's Day,

Tuesday, February 14th. It's Consider This from NPR. We're going to take you to a bookstore in Baltimore called Charm City Books. Tall shelves are jammed full of books inside a narrow, converted four-story row house, and a big white and gray dog named Lou plods across the hardwood floors, introducing himself to everyone who walks through the door. We wanted to visit this bookstore because sales of romance novels are booming, and one group of incredibly dedicated readers might help us understand why. Hi, everybody. I'm Alyssa. I'm one of the Bookslut's co-leads.

I want to thank you all for coming. This is such a great show out for our first in-person research of the Romance Book Club. That was Alyssa Foley. She leads this book group. Readers, books in hand stretch from the front of the store all the way to the back where there's a charcuterie spread set up along with chocolates, boxed wine and seltzer. Some people here like Foley have been reading romance for years, but others? So how many people is romance a new genre for them? They're exploring. Yes. Yes. Great. Proudly in the air. We love that. Demand for romance novels is booming in the U.S. with sales of print copies surging about 52 percent in the year 2022, even as book sales saw a decline.

That's according to Publishers Weekly. It's also something Davin Ralston has seen. She owns Charm City Books with her husband Joe Carlson. You know, when we first started in 2019, I was like really raring to do a romance book club and have a romance section because so many bookstores don't have a romance section and so I wanted to be really proud of it because I felt like it was important to have that representation and for the women who may feel nervous or or made to feel ashamed of wanting to read this type of literature I wanted it to be like very prominent in the store and at first you know there wasn't a lot of interest honestly at, at our first romance book swap, Alyssa is the only one who showed up with her husband. And so it was me and my husband and her husband.

What was that like? It was, so at first I was like, oh man, but like we actually hit it off. So now we're very good friends. It's definitely had its ups and downs. But the number of people who come in buying romance books has just like dramatically increased. And the books that people get most excited about, they'll be pre-ordering them very far in advance. Okay, so I do have to ask, who is responsible for the name of this book group? Oh my gosh. So it's actually a funny story. I started with the book club name The Telltale

Hearts because I was like, oh, we're next to the Poe House. But on a walk with her brother. He's like, you should just name it Book Sluts. And I was like, what? No, I could not do that. As she thought about it, though, the name grew on her. I was like, you know what? Why not? Because there is that stigma around the word slut as well. So I was like, I feel like if we sort of lean into that, it's a really great way to show like, we're just not ashamed of liking to read smut. Later, Alyssa and Davin started handing out these white and pink romance themed bingo cards with

little graphics of hearts all over them. Each square on the card featured one of the genre's most loved or most loathed tropes. Alyssa called them out one by one. Let's go for enemies to lovers. Okay, enemies to lovers, single parent, paranormal, free space, and secret. And when it comes to selling romance readers on a book, especially online, tropes are a big deal. Here's Alyssa Foley again. They're a shorthand for what sort of happens in different types of stories. Things like fated mates. Marriage of convenience is one of my favorite. Forced proximity. I do a lot of Instagram, romance, book talk stuff.

Oh, book talk, yes. And you can easily tag the book as this and everybody knows what it means. Romance reader Antoinette Morales says she has a bunch of favorites. I like enemies to lovers. I like meet-cutes. I like fake dating, like, oh, we have to pretend we're dating because we're going to my ex's wedding and I don't want him to know I'm lonely. I just want people to get together. Like, I don't really care how they do it. I just, happy people loving each other. It's my favorite.

She grew up writing fan fiction, which led her to romance novels. I think this world does such a good job of telling us why we're not good enough. And finding love tells you that even if you're a little bit broken, you are good enough, if not for somebody else, then for yourself. And I think romance has a way of, like, filling in the cracks in yourself, sometimes with another person and sometimes with, you know, platonic friendship and sometimes with yourself. And that's really important to me. Morales was one of several readers who pointed out the slowly increasing diversity within the genre. I jump for joy when I'm reading a book and there's a female protagonist and she wraps her

hair at night. Like that makes my heart sing because it's like, oh my gosh, that's me. I get my bonnet and I put it on and then I open my book. I don't exclusively read books for people of color, women of color, but it is nice to look on a bookshelf and see it and know that it's there. It's out in the open. It's not sequestered in its own little dark corner of the bookstore. At this book club meeting, everyone was invited to bring along a favorite book to swap with someone else. The book stacked high on a square card table near the front of the store. Morellas added an Allie Hazelwood book to the collection. I brought The Love Hypothesis here because I love that book. And that book was also started as fan fiction.

And that book wound up in Nakara Campbell's hands. I think it's about like the scientist PhD candidate who's like trying to find love. I'm not entirely sure. Whatever, roaring reviews. And I'm here for it. How did you get into reading romance books? So by accident. I actually started off with Jasmine Guillory. One, because she always showcases like black women and always them being the most desired also it's not like your traditional cookie cutter like slim or whatever she always features like either full-size women women who are wearing their natural hair and I'm like yep I'm sold I love it here okay so I'm learning that

everybody kind of has their favorite kind of tropes or subgenres. What are some of yours? Powerful women who are trying to find love. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's enough. That's the girl. So what do you think people who shy away from romance books, for whatever reason, what do they miss by steering clear? Just being vulnerable. I think nobody really wants to believe they want to fall in love. Like we've been so like tough and we all deserve love and that's okay. Like just be open, be open to love. Very personal question. Yeah. How much money do you spend on books? It sounds like you read a ton. My boyfriend is here, so he's right there.

Okay, he can't hear me. It's probably like, I probably spend at least a thousand a year, maybe more. The publishing industry has readers like these to thank for the surging sales of romance books, so we asked them for recommendations. This one book kept coming up. Adelani Ecclesi's book, You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty. And as soon as Alyssa Foley said it, everyone around her started nodding. You made a fool of death with your beauty.

Every single time. That thing is spicy. I'm still sweating. Like, I'm fanning myself thinking about that book. Okay, so put it on the spice meter for me. Where are we on the dial? Oh, 12. Out of 10? Mm-hmm. Oh, my. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers.