If social media presents an existential threat to reading as a pastime, no one has yet told the romance readers.
Apps like TikTok and Instagram have thriving communities of readers—nicknamed BookTok and Bookstagram, respectively—ready to dissect their favorite books. Within these online communities, romance fans are a particularly visible set.
Bright Side Books & Wine, a romance-only bookstore that recently moved into a permanent home in downtown Raleigh, is, in some ways, the physical manifestation of these online communities.
Here, fans of the genre can find as niche a novel as they could possibly desire. There are sections for queer and local authors, the classics, the breakout hits. Visitors can post up on plush leather couches or at bright café tables, and attend book clubs and signings.
“It feels settled,” owner Susannah Baird told the INDY recently, surveying the shop. “My friend jokes that this is ‘Susannah’s Barbie Dreamhouse.’ It is, though—how it was built and decorated, everything. It’s exactly what I wanted it to be.”
Romance novels have always been a cornerstone of the publishing industry, though it’s harder than one might expect to pinpoint the genre’s exact heft—the most commonly cited figure, a valuation of $1.4 billion, is based on outdated data from the trade association Romance Writers of America, which went bankrupt in 2024 after being clouded by scandals.
Nevertheless, romance novels are certainly more visible than ever, particularly among millennials and Generation Z readers. Many readers got into the genre (and into sharing their reading journeys online) during COVID-19, shortly after the cartoon covers trend emerged to catch new readers’ eyes.
Since then, a handful of other dynamic factors—social media, the rise of self-publishing, the popularity of shows like Bridgerton and Heated Rivalry, and updated mores within the books themselves—have contributed to a spike in popularity.
The publishing industry has certainly paid attention, and media has followed suit, giving the once-sidelined genre consistent coverage. The biggest beneficiary of this increased attention is the corner of the romance world known as romantasy, or romance novels set in a fantasy world.
This fall alone, romantasy fans have new releases to look forward to from Sarah J. Maas, Carissa Broadbent, Rachel Gillig, and Sarah A. Parker (all No. 1 New York Times bestselling authors)—all of which you can preorder at Bright Side Books & Wine.
“There’s so many incredible authors that write about really, really important topics that are very—I don’t want to say more easily digestible, because that devalues it—but because of the context of the romance, people can consume really heavy topics in a way that feels safe—because you know, at the end of the book, it’s happy,” said Baird.
Because of the context of the romance, people can consume really heavy topics in a way that feels safe—because you know, at the end of the book, it’s happy.”
susannah baird, owner,
bright side books & wine
For many readers, the genre offers something like following sports: it’s entertainment, escapism, and a safe place to work through difficult emotions, all in one. Win or lose, sports fans find some kind of catharsis at the end of their carefully formula-bound games. So do romance readers.
“I think there was a lot of my own training to understand that my interests are valid, regardless of what they are,” Baird said. “I’ve seen a lot of that in people coming in to find a new book—being new to romance and not understanding all that it encompasses.”
We’ve known since at least 1984, when Janice Radway—now a professor emerita at Duke University—published Reading the Romance, that the genre’s readers are opinionated women (mostly) who love to granularly dissect their favorite reads and won’t settle for too-mindless writing.
In her studies of a group of Midwestern romance fans she nicknames the Smithton readers, Radway found readers with such specific tastes and voracious habits that they would visit several local bookstores to find the books they wanted.
“In fact, what the Smithton group makes clear is that its members continue to possess very particular tastes in romance fiction that are not adequately addressed by publishers,” Radway wrote in Reading the Romance.
Today, romance continues to be at the top of the publishing food chain, and the genre’s writers are doing quite well—take romantasy rock star Maas, who made headlines for selling nearly 5 million books in just the first half of 2024.
Dedicated spaces like Bright Side are a newer phenomenon. In Brooklyn, the Ripped Bodice will celebrate a decade of operation this year, but the other 200-ish romance-only bookselling operations in the U.S. are much younger. These shops—many of which are pop-ups or mobile bookstores—are among the most community-oriented book spaces, even within the friendly indie world.
Just like the reading circles Radway met in the ’80s, today’s romance readers want spaces to talk through their books from every angle.
That’s exactly how Raleigh got Bright Side: Baird’s business is the setting for the extended community she’s looking to cultivate. Her author events first came about, she said, because “people really wanted something like this.”
Baird, who is 32, found her reading community online first, during the pandemic, after a friend handed her a romantasy series that helped revitalize her reading life.
“At the time, I was reading several books a week—that has slowed down significantly—but I wanted a space. I wanted this place, and I wanted to be the one to do it,” she said. It wasn’t long, reading at this pace, that she found she’d “read through the romance stock at every local bookstore.” (Other than her own, she says that Quail Ridge and Blackbird Books are her favorite bookstores.)
“Both stores are all-genre, which makes complete sense!” Baird said. “But I don’t necessarily read all genres. I stay in my romantasy and contemporary romance lane. And I found that there were a lot of people in an online community in the area [who were] just kind of desperate for a physical, in-person meeting place.”
In 2024, after years of dreaming of opening a bookstore with a friend who lives out of state, Baird decided it was time to give it a shot on her own, asking herself: “Is this gonna stay in our heads as a fun dream, or am I gonna do this?”
Permitting issues initially prevented Baird from moving into the space late last year, when she planned to open, but three rounds of permits and five months later, Bright Side is finally in its intended home on the ground floor of the Platform Raleigh Apartments off Cabarrus Street.
The shop is cozy, with walls of moss-green bookshelves facing tables full of laptop-bound remote workers. A bar that currently serves a spread of teas and THC drinks dominates the back half of the shop, and it will serve wine when the ABC licensing process is through. Bar Manager Meredith Kelly plans to have 12 to 15 wines, often tied to specific books or events.
Baird opened a pop-up version of the shop last November, which allowed her to start nurturing the community she was looking for. The Bright Side team, now a staff of 13 (up from Baird and just two others at the pop-up), runs a robust slate of programming.
When I arrived to talk to Baird, she was in conversation with two local romance authors (both friends she initially made online) who are part of the planning committee for Magic & Meet Cutes—a two-day, 18-author event that took place in mid-June, somewhere between a book signing and convention.
The actual business of selling books comes up almost incidentally in conversations with Baird, nearly always second to her joy at being able to “offer a third space.” Baird heard that authors wanted something like Magic & Meet Cutes, so she initiated it.
The indie authors on the list, nine of the 18, will sell their own stock, so Bright Side won’t take any cut from the sales of half the event’s vendors. Asked about favorite publishers, Baird said she usually chases down authors or romance publishers she wants to sell individually.
This attitude, a focus on connection and initiative above other concerns, is, in many ways, a defining feature of the romance industry itself. Much of the stock in Baird’s shop is indie romance, all of which is what other corners of the book world might call self-published. In some genres, that label might carry a kind of stigma, but romance is different. With the rise of platforms like Kindle Unlimited, indie romance authors can build successful careers without the support of traditional publishers.
Some of the biggest romance writers in the game, in fact—writers like Colleen Hoover and Ali Hazelwood—got their start by putting their work online as indie-pubbed books or fan fiction. Once these writers drew enough of a following to prove that the books they want to write are profitable, agents and publishers swooped in. (And often, the most successful romance authors, like Courtney Milan and Kennedy Ryan, eventually cycle back out of traditional publishing, returning to indie publishing for their own work.)
All this makes it easy to see parallels between Baird’s business and the indie romance world.
Author Ruby Dixon wanted to write books about women astronauts falling for giant blue aliens, and no one wanted to publish them until they saw how much readers loved them. Now, Ice Planet Barbarians is a successful 22-book series with spinoffs. Likewise, Baird knew that readers wanted a space to pursue their shared interest, so she created one. Now, Triangle romance readers have a physical space and an energetic community-builder bringing their favorite authors to town.
And while Baird has met the occasional skeptic, her business has largely been met with interest and support, she said: Opening weekend in the new space brought in 50% new customers.
Baird loves welcoming new people into the romance community and helping them find their next read or subgenre (dystopian romance and stand-alone romantasy are the trendy romance subgenres this summer, and Baird has recs), but she’s not trying to convert everyone. At the end of the day, she just wants everyone to shop at indie bookstores and find their people.
“Your indie bookstore, no matter if it’s an all-genre, single-genre, whatever—your indie bookstore is the community,” she said. “You’re not going to find that community at a big-box store. It just doesn’t exist, because there is not someone there to nurture it. … ‘Community’ is just the word I’m gonna always come back to. That’s what everyone was craving.”
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