Page 58 of How to Find a Romance in a Bookshop

Petra was seeing a lot of Alison, the—as yet—unpublished romance writer, but that was hardly surprising: Alison was in Write Club and the Beach Reads Book Club, plus, she was in the shop at least twice a week, buying what Petra felt was an admirably broad selection of books.

“I’m dying to read this myself,” she told Alison as she brought a hardback copy of Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros over to the register.

“Have you read the others?” Alison asked. “I adored Fourth Wing. It was my first romantasy, actually.”

“I haven’t yet,” admitted Petra. “I hate getting to the end of a book in a series and having to wait for the next one, so I save them up. That reminds me—I have to pick the group’s brains about romantasy when we next meet. I’ve got a few, but I’d like to stock other writers in the genre, and it’s not my specialist subject.”

“I can tell you everything about romantasy,” declared Alison happily. “We can have a heated debate. Any and all things romance, that’s me. And thank goodness Capelthorne’s actually stocks romance.”

“Of course!” said Petra, thinking of her pleasing sales data from the Beach Reads Book Club books, which were mostly romance.

“Exactly,” chimed in Alison, shaking her head. “Whenever I travel, I always visit the local independent bookshop to check what they do and don’t have. I mean, they seem to grudgingly have the really big hits, but only after they’ve gone huge on TikTok and become unignorable. The romance writers I love don’t get a look-in. And I challenge them about that too, you know?”

“You do?” said Petra, smiling. Alison was the sweetest, quietest, most gentle woman she ever met. She couldn’t imagine her picking a fight with anyone.

“I do!” Alison declared fearlessly.

“And what do they say?”

“It goes like this: First I ask them why they don’t stock a good range of romance. Then they give me some rubbish that there isn’t much call for it. I even had a man tell me they only stock ‘proper books.’”

Petra made an outraged noise.

“I know! What he—they—actually mean is they think romance is below them.”

“Their loss,” opined Petra.

“Exactly. I mean, it doesn’t go unnoticed that the majority of romance is read by women, so what does that mean? And don’t even get me started on how underrepresented queer romance is,” Alison added, frowning furiously.

“And how do you reply when they say romance doesn’t count?” Petra smiled.

“I ask them if they stock Jane Austen and the Brontës,” Alison said stoutly. “Of course, they always say yes to that. And then I watch it slowly dawn on their silly little faces.”

“Brilliant!” applauded Petra. “Not much call for it,” she scoffed. “How can they ignore that romance book sales are beaten only by crime. They’re huge. Who wouldn’t want a slice of that market?”

“Romance readers, out and proud!” agreed Alison. “But maybe those snooty bookshop owners are right, though,” she added doubtfully. “Is it an online thing maybe? Perhaps romances don’t sell in physical bookshops.”

“Self-fulfilling prophesy, if they refuse to stock them,” snorted Petra. “It’s the classic circular argument. That’s why you all at Beach Reads Book Club are so helpful to me.”

“I did feel like Diana’s book club was sometimes a bit too much about wading through hefty books to demonstrate your intellect or how cultured you are,” admitted Alison.

“Hmm, book clubs can be a bit . . .” Petra wrinkled her nose, “. . . performative. People don’t talk about their commercial fiction reading habits.”

“Which is crazy. Why shouldn’t they?” said Alison firmly. “It’s just the same as having a Snickers bar rather than something fancy from Maison Chocolat. Some days you want one, some days the other . . . Both are fantastic.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Petra brought it up with Ross that evening as they ate and, although he seemed a little distracted, his response was robust: “What you’re really asking is whether bookshops should be selling commercial fiction or just literary,” he proposed.

“No, I’m not,” protested Petra. “Of course they should sell both. I mean, we’re selling the latest Costa winner, sure, but if we weren’t pushing the books the Beach Reads group recommended, our last three months’ turnover wouldn’t look anything like as rosy as it does.”

“Exactly,” said Ross. “So the question is not whether romances are serious books—whatever that even means—but if there’s another reason why bookshops don’t generally stock them.” He waited patiently for Petra to catch up, but she was puzzled.

“Okay, who reads the most romance, men or women?” he postulated.

“I want to say both, but . . .”

“Yeah, but you can’t because it’s primarily women, isn’t it?” Ross went on.