The romance book market has been growing since 2021, and "the volume for romance books has more than doubled compared to four years ago, with 51 million units sold in the past 12 months," according to a June 4 report by Brenna Connor, industry analyst, U.S. books, at Circana BookScan.
So far this year, "romance stands out among the adult fiction subjects showing the most growth in 2025," Connor continued. "In fact, romance is the leading growth category for the total print book market thus far in 2025. Fastest growing romance subjects include romantasy and sports romance, each experiencing triple-digit growth, as well as suspense romance and contemporary romance."
Connor cited readers' passion for Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros, published in January by Red Tower Books, which sold 2.7 million copies in its first week after publication. It was "the fastest selling adult title in its opening week in the 20-year history of BookScan." But the romance category has expanded beyond Onyx Storm. "Even when excluding Yarros from the romance market, the category is still showing double-digit growth," Connor wrote. "H.D. Carlton, Rina Kent, and Elsie Silver are among the top growing romance authors this year. One key similarity among them is that their stories explore dark romance, including paranormal and anti-hero themes. A desire for dark subjects is surfacing within the romance book market. This trend aligns with other growing segments in adult fiction including psychological thrillers (+29%), dark fantasy (+23%), and horror (+13%).... These subject matters provide an outlet for readers to safely explore negative emotions such as sadness, anger, or anxiety--allowing them to feel connected and perhaps even comforted. I expect to see continued interest in these darker subjects in the year ahead."
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By other measures, romance has struck a strong chord among readers and the industry. Bookstores specializing in romance are opening at a heart-warming pace. At Shelf Awareness, romance bookstores are the single-largest category of our new bookstore stories, so many that sometimes we space out the stories about new romance bookstores to give each its own moment in the limelight.
In addition, for years, of course, bookstores have been the setting for romance, from meet-cutes to dates. Increasingly they're also the setting for proposals and marriages. At Shelf Awareness, we regularly run pictures of proposals made in bookstores as well as the occasional marriage. These have been so prevalent that in February, Brandeis University Press published Bookstore Romance: Love Speak Volumes, a book about 24 couples who got engaged or married in bookstores. By Judith Rosen, a former editor and correspondent at Publishers Weekly, with a foreword by Jeffrey Mayersohn, co-owner of the Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, Mass., the book includes photographs of the couples, interviews with them, and more.