Five hot romance novel recs from a San Diego bookstore owner
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The owner of Meet Cute Romance Bookshop, Becca Title, shared some new sweet and spicy book recs with Axios ahead of Valentine's Day.
The big picture: San Diego's first and only romance bookstore helped the genre heat up as print sales have grown and more lusty literature shops pop up around the country.
- Meet Cute moved from North Park to a bigger space in La Mesa last year.
Here's what Title says about the hottest romance novels right now:
🚲 "Shore Thing" by Joanna Lowell is about "finding yourself and your people in a world that wants you to be somebody else." It's full of queer joy, righteous anger, hope and Victorian bicyclists," Title said.
🎹 In "A Love Song for Ricki Wilde" by Tia Williams, "a free-spirited daughter of a powerful Atlanta family meets a musician with a secret in this dual timeline romance set between Harlem during its Renaissance and the modern day."
🩺 "A Tropical Rebel Gets the Duke" by Adriana Herrera is a "richly researched, lush historical romance set in 1880's France in which a doctor running an underground women's clinic and a man who is, reluctantly, a duke, are forced to flee together to the French Riviera."
🌶️ "The Pairing" by Casey McQuiston is "sexy and indulgent, a hot read for a cold evening." It follows a pair of friends-to-lovers-to-exes-to-lovers on a European food and wine tour.
📺 "How to End a Love Story" by Yulin Kuang is an enemies-to-lovers romantic drama set in LA. Two people, whose lives were bound together by an accident, haven't seen each other for thirteen years until they both land jobs writing on the same TV show.