Guaranteed happy endings at romance-only bookstore
MINNEAPOLIS — Customers who walk into the Tropes & Trifles store know they’re about to encounter a happy ending. In fact, it’s guaranteed.
Tropes & Trifles is a romance-only bookstore and romance books have two unbreakable rules: A love story must be front-and-center and the book must end happily.
“This is the one section where we can’t guarantee you a happy ending or, at least a happy ending for the romance,” said Tropes co-owner Caitllin O’Neil, pointing to the small “Not Quite Romance” shelf, which contains, for instance, thrillers with love stories that aren’t the focus of the plot. All the other books in the store — roughly 5,000 of them — promise a wedding or at least an ardent kiss at the end.
With romance books accounting for almost 20 percent of US book sales, the South Minneapolis store may be on the crest of a boom, with lovethemed bookshops shaping up as a trend.
“We thought we would be the fourth (all-romance store) in the country. Then, five opened last year,” said co-owner Lauren Richards, who said the nearest stores she knows of are in Chicago and Kansas. Tropes had been doing popups at breweries and themed events, selling up to 100 titles in a weekend, but the two decided last fall to open a brickand-mortar store.
The intervening months have been filled with construction that expanded the sales space from 500 to 800 square feet, ordering books and shelving books, in categories that include historical, paranormal, contemporary and dark romance (said O’Neil, “This is where you have people falling in love with villains or morally-gray characters.”). There’s also been a lot of paper-folding — above the “Romantasy” shelves is a wall of colorful origami dragons, which Richards folded while bingeing “Love Is Blind” episodes.
The women met five years ago in a book club. A romance book club. That’s where Richards, who had been a political consultant, first joked about opening a bookstore. A month later, she joked about it again.
“I was like, ‘Twice is a pattern,’” said O’Neil, a book publicist and translator who direct-messaged Richards to find out how serious she was.
“I said, ‘I have a budget spreadsheet,’” Richards recalled answering, to which O’Neil added, “And it was a beautiful budget spreadsheet.”
One reason romance has become so popular is the recently amped-up diversity of authors and stories, such as the “Bridgerton” series and “Can’t Escape Love,” whose heroine uses a wheelchair.
“It’s our philosophy: A love story is a love story, no matter what the people look like,” said Richards. “It might have queer people. It might have Black people. It might have straight people. It might have hockey players.”
The two also think the pandemic drew more readers to romance.
“There was so much anxiety and uncertainty,” said O’Neil, that readers turned to books where they knew mental health concerns and grief would be plot points, but that everything would work out just fine. The happy endings made it easier to deal with.