How the world fell back in love with romantic fiction
Thanks to Tik-Tok and streaming, romantic novels are more popular than ever. Claire Cohen reports
Perhaps Bridgerton should have been a clue. In the 28 days after its premiere in December 2020, the Netflix drama was watched by 82million households worldwide – propelling the Julia Quinn novels, from which it had been adapted, into The New York Times bestseller list, two decades after they were published.
From historical bodice rippers to gentle happy-ever-afters and even novels about falling in love with yourself, our passion for romantic fiction has been reignited. We are buying more novels than ever – according to data firm Nielsen
BookScan, UK print sales last year totalled a record £1.82billion – with romance seeing a 49 per cent increase.
Bookshelves and Kindles are just as likely to contain newer names – Beth O’Leary, Sophia Money-Coutts, Dolly Alderton, Lucy Vine – as those authors they name-check as their inspiration: Marian Keyes, whose long-awaited sequel Again, Rachel is published this week and Jilly Cooper, who’s putting the finishing touches to her latest, Tackle.
In addition, the romantic novel is widening its scope. No longer the preserve of white authors writing about heterosexual love, the market now has room for books such as Talia Hibbert’s Act Your Age, Eve Brown which became a bestseller last year, and Casey McQuiston’s Red, White and Royal Blue – about a relationship between the male US president and the Prince of Wales – which was one of the most popular recommendations on BookTok, the subcommunity of highly successful app TikTok which focuses on literature.
“There are more diverse authors, more diverse characters – it’s probably still below the representation of the population at large but there’s a lot of new authors coming in,” says Tom Tivnan, managing editor of The Bookseller. “TikTok has … opened a market that hasn’t been en tapped into as much as it should have ve been.”
“It’s vitally important tant that stories of love depict a wide range of characters,” says author Sareeta Domingo, who ho has published a collection n of love stories by British women men of colour, called Who’s Loving
You. “Love is a universal rsal human experience. The way a love story is told says s so much about society, and so o we need to see all types of people within them.” ”
Even industry stalwarts are embracing change, with Mills & Boon launching a competition for romance novels featuring LGBTQI+ protagonists. Quite a departure for an imprint that was founded more than a century ago and has been the butt of jokes for almost as long. lo With titles like Rent a Wife and an The Billionaire’s Captive Bride Bri – in which young helpless he women swoon at a the attentions of powerful powerfu men – it’s not difficult difficul to see why. The stuff of feminist fantasy this certainly ce isn’t, and by the 1980s 198 the appetite for these skinny, s florid volum volumes was starting to wane. wane Little wonder that, tha in 2003, 2.5million 2. pulped editions e were mixed with w tarmac and used in the construction of the M6 Toll.
Yet the sneering has never affected sales. The romance novels (it started out publishing books on subjects like travel and craft as well) have long been a roaring success, with the earliest examples selling thousands of copies and propelling their authors towards fruitful writing careers, some – such as Jean MacLeod who wrote 130 Mills & Boon books between 1939 and 2011 – nipping at the heels of even Barbara Cartland, who authored 723 romance novels in her lifetime.
By the 1970s, the paperbacks had a reputation for being “sensual” and their handsome English heroes had attracted the attention of foreign readers. Today, the imprint has more than 1,500 writers worldwide. According to its website, a new Mills & Boon book is sold in the UK every 10 seconds and, even today, 700 new titles are published annually – including one by the Duchess of York last year.
But Mills & Boon were pretty chaste compared to what was happening in the real world, as sexuality became more explicit in everyday conversation and films and TV started to leave little to the
‘Even if your plots are incredibly intricate, if you write romance, you’re classed as “lesser” ’
imagination. Into that vacuum stepped the “bonkbuster” – with Jilly Cooper, Jackie Collins, Danielle Steel and the Black Lace series giving readers something to really get hot under the collar about. And of course, “chick lit”, whose “modern” and “relatable” female characters started with Bridget Jones and went on to dominate romantic fiction in the 1990s and early 2000s – with book covers featuring lipstick, bags, stilettos and cocktail glasses.
While it might have attracted a wide readership, the reviewers were less than kind.
“Romantic fiction has always been loved by readers and has powered the fiction industry and bestseller lists – it is just not acknowledged by the literary establishment,” says Amanda Ridout, who founded commercial fiction publisher Boldwood Books in 2019.
The problem has always been about reputation, not retail, says best-selling romance author Milly Johnson.
“Even if your plots are as intricate as the twistiest crime novel, your prose as silky as a literary one, if you write romance you are classed as ‘lesser’,” she explains. “I have no idea where this snobbery came from, only that it has not been addressed and has become somehow some reviewers acceptable. is telling: The cheesy, language of fabulously predictable, mushy – and those are the compliments.
“It has become an industry embarrassment and it has to stop. We might write feelgood fiction, but it’s a heavyweight business. We are in the
bestseller lists because our readers put us there.”
Tivnan believes a lot of the snobbery boils down to the myth that: “They’re for ladies who can’t read anything else… That the only demographic for these books is frustrated suburban housewives. That they’re inherently silly because they have happy endings.”
E-books are a significant part of that success at the tills – something Ridout says has “allowed romantic fiction writers to reach their readers without any disapproving gatekeepers.”
Between 40 and 50 per cent of the top-selling e-books each week are romances, estimates Tivnan: “It’s partly because you don’t want someone raising their eyebrows on the Tube when you’re reading a Mills & Boon, but there’s also a practical element because often bookshops don’t have, say, all 30 books of a romance author.” It’s also, he adds, a class issue. “In particular, working-class women read romance books more than they read others. Going into Waterstones can be intimidating for some people, so buying an e-book is easier.”
He credits erotic romantic fiction – EL James’s Fifty Shades of Grey in particular – for driving e-books into the mainstream, just as the Netflix revolution is now pushing audiences back towards romance novels.
“And if we go back 100 years, the thing that was driving paperbacks was Mills & Boon. So we have this long tradition of romance being one of the most cutting-edge parts of the book business,” he says.
The recent spike, however, must also owe something to the pandemic – with readers seeking escapism, even if it came via Bridgerton.
“Unquestionably,” says Tivnan. “[Romance] is uplifting and when you’ve spent eight hours juggling Zoom calls and home-schooling, settling down to one is a nice way to end the day.
“Who knows how long this TikTok and streaming golden age is going to last, but as long as there are people enthusing about books in a way that removes them from the literary old guard, I think the romance boom will continue.”
‘Again, Rachel’ by Marian Keyes is out on Thursday. To order your copy for £16.99 call 0844 871 1514 or visit books. telegraph.co.uk. ‘Bridgerton’ returns on March 25 on Netflix