Last summer, when Mae Tingstrom had the idea to open a romance bookstore in Ventura, California, the first thing she did was search online to see whether there was already one in her region. She found The Ripped Bodice — a bookstore in Culver City that was doing so well that it was expanding to a second location in the New York City borough of Brooklyn.

“That was intimidating,” she said.

If their success was daunting, it also suggested that there might be room for another romance store. So in February, she opened Smitten on a busy strip of Main Street, about 60 miles from her competitor.

In the months since, Smitten has become a vibrant hub for romance readers, with author signings, tarot readings, book clubs, and trivia and craft nights.

Customers sometimes approach her with specific requests. “Someone came in and was like, ‘I like fantasy, I want it to be queer, I want it to have representation from a different culture, and I want it to be as smutty as possible,’ ” Tingstrom said.

And they come in often.

“I have regulars who come a couple of times a week,” Tingstrom said. “I’m like, ‘Didn’t you just buy two books the other day?’ ”

Once a niche that independent booksellers largely ignored, romance is now the hottest thing in the book world. It is, by far, the top-selling fiction genre, and its success is reshaping not only the publishing industry but also the retail landscape.

Over the past two years, the country went from having two dedicated romance bookstores — The Ripped Bodice and Love’s Sweet Arrow in Chicago — to a national network of more than 20. Among them: Tropes & Trifles in Minneapolis; Grump and Sunshine in Belfast, Maine; Beauty and the Book in Anchorage, Alaska; Lovebound Library in Salt Lake City; and Blush Bookstore in Wichita, Kansas.

More are on the way, including Kiss & Tale in Collingswood, New Jersey; The New Romantics in Orlando, Florida; and Grand Gesture Books in Portland, Oregon, an online romance store that’s moving into a storefront.

The bookstores are largely owned and operated by women. And women make up the majority of the readers who have sent romance sales soaring — from 18 million print copies sold in 2020 to more than 39 million in 2023, according to Circana BookScan.

Romance writers such as Sarah J. Maas, Emily Henry, Colleen Hoover and Rebecca Yarros dominate the bestseller lists: Six of the top 10 bestselling fiction authors in the United States this year are romance writers.

Publishers are expanding their romance lists, wooing self-published romance authors with large advances and adding new imprints.

The shift is huge from the days when romance was looked down upon as frothy and unserious “chick-lit,” or as smut. Even just a few years ago, many independent bookstores carried only a small selection of romance novels, often relegated to a shelf in the back of the store.

Many of these stores have a flirty, flamboyantly feminine aesthetic: heavy on pink, accented with heart and floral motifs, decked out with signs and merchandise that play on familiar romance tropes — enemies to lovers, forced proximity, forbidden love, secret identity. They carry every conceivable romance subgenre: historical, LGBTQ+, YA, supernatural and romantasy, and sports-themed.

Many also stock self-published novels, which mainstream booksellers typically don’t carry.