Love's Sweet Arrow Romance Bookstore Fund-raising

Roseann and Marissa Backlin

Marissa and Roseann Backlin, a mother-and-daughter team who have been avid readers of romance novels for years, hope to open Love's Sweet Arrow, a romance-only bookstore in June. They launched a Kickstarter campaign recently and are exploring several potential retail locations in the Chicagoland area.

"Love's Sweet Arrow is going to be a romance-only bookstore," said Marissa Backlin. "Romance is a genre both of us are passionate about and sadly, it is still the one with the most stigma to it. Because it is a genre that many women read and love, it has the aura of being lesser and less worthy of a quality status. We understand that anyone passionate about romance deserves a place to find it, so we wanted to open a bookstore just for people like us in the Midwest."

She added that Love's Sweet Arrow's goal will be to provide a fun customer experience for their niche audience: "We have lots of plans in the works. We want to have meet and greets with authors, book clubs, and movie nights where we get together and watch new releases and discuss it as we watch. Roseann is crafty so she would love to have craft night with wine a few times a year! And, I am a huge Parks and Recreation fan, so we will absolutely be having Treat Yourself Day and Galentine's Day celebrations. In addition, we are open to lots of other ideas."

Roseann Backlin said they want Love's Sweet Arrow to be "a community venture, so we have plans to give and support the community. We would like to have book drives, to both children and incarcerated women, and we will provide opportunities for our customers and the community to donate books. One thing we already do is collect non-perishables around the holidays with our family and donate it to a charity. Last year, we donated to the Humane Society, and with our bookstore, we are hoping to have multiple drives like this in order expand how we can help and we will be looking for different charities to support all people in need."

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