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As interest in reading for pleasure declines in the U.S. overall, there’s one genre that’s been steadily drawing readers in with promises of happily-ever-afters: romance.
Print sales for romance books have more than doubled in the last five years, according to data from Circana BookScan. And as interest skyrockets, so do third spaces catering to romance book lovers.
Bookstores and conferences dedicated to the genre of love — and every subgenre and trope under its umbrella — have been popping up all over the country, and readers are eating it up.
Here & Now’s Hafsa Quraishi recently dove into these spaces to figure out what’s driving this recent boom in romance.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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