Why steamy romance novels are making a comeback beyond BookTok, from It Ends with Us to Bridgerton

First came Twilight and Fifty Shades of Gray … now, romantic fiction is enjoying another heyday, with authors like Colleen Hoover boasting legions of fans

Reading Time:10 minutes

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in a still from their romantic drama film, It Ends with Us, which was adapted from the novel of the same name. Photo: Sony Pictures

Published: 12:15pm, 7 Oct 2024Updated: 12:52pm, 8 Oct 2024

When Shonee Mirchandani returned to Hong Kong from London two decades ago to help run the family bookshop business, Bookazine, the first thing she saw were the romance novels occupying the prime real estate beside store entrances. “The walls were floor to ceiling romance,” she recalls. “No bestsellers, non-fiction or prizewinners – it was all these old-fashioned steamy romance books.”

Bookazine Hong Kong director Shonee M. Mirchandani poses for a picture at Bookazine in Central, Hong Kong. Photo: SCMP

Charged with reinvigorating the bookselling chain, Mirchandani and sister Arti lost no time in ordering a complete refresh of their stores, not merely relegating the bodice-rippers to a less visible location, but removing them altogether. In time, Mirchandani would meet women at events around Hong Kong who would first compliment her on the reinvigorated stores – then take her aside to complain that they could no longer buy their favourite books. “It gradually dawned on me that these women were all obsessed with buying sexy romance books to spice up their quiet lives,” says Mirchandani, laughing, “even if they would never normally admit to reading them.”

Twenty years on, reading romance is no longer a dirty little secret, and booksellers such as Bookazine are placing the likes of Colleen Hoover, Sarah J. Maas, Emily Henry and Rebecca Yarros proudly front and centre in their stores. The options for a hot and steamy beach read have never been greater, with settings ranging from the cosy to the erotic, from offices to ice-hockey rinks. Then there is the breakout category romantasy, combining the tropes of traditional romance and fantasy fiction.

This market has exploded, especially across the English writing and reading world. In the United States, print book sales in the category registered more than 39 million copies in 2023, up from 18 million in 2020, according to data specialist Circana BookScan. British sales have registered similar growth, with annual sales valued at £53 million (HK$550 million), up 110 per cent in the same period.

The undisputed reigning queen of the category is Colleen Hoover – “CoHo” to her dedicated following of “CoHorts” – reportedly selling 23 million copies of romance stories that explore the healing power a good relationship can bestow upon (frequently) unlikeable characters. This is the hottest of hot summers for Hoover, whose hit 2016 novel about domestic violence, It Ends with Us, became a major feature film starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.

Romance novels are seeing a resurgence in recent years. Photo: Vivian Ho

Despite behind-the-scenes drama between cast members and criticism for being marketed as a romcom, the movie helped Hoover once again sweep the book charts, securing her, in August, the rare accolade of occupying the top three spots in the official UK top 50, issued by Nielsen BookScan – a first for her publisher, Simon & Schuster.

Genre-driven publishing sensations are nothing new, with the mid-2000s dominated by a succession of breakout hits that created popular categories, from Dan Brown’s quest-conspiracy The Da Vinci Code (2003) and Stephenie Meyer’s vampiric forbidden-love story Twilight (2005) to Suzanne Collins’ young adult (YA) dystopia The Hunger Games (2008) and – climax of all climaxes – E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey (2011), with its soft sadomasochism.