In 2023, Jenn Draper's pop-up experiment, Happily Ever After (HEA) became Iowa’s first romance-exclusive bookstore. At the time, only a handful of similar brick-and-mortar stores had appeared nationwide.
“We were the first in Iowa to really embrace this concept," she said.
Today, her store is one of dozens across the country, thanks to a surge in demand for romance books that continues to boom. This Valentine’s season, interest has reached a fever pitch, thanks in part to the success of media adaptations based on romance novels, including LGBTQ hockey romance Heated Rivalry and Netflix’s Bridgerton, which is currently in its fourth season.
"It was very clear that there was an appetite in our area and a desire for this.”Jenn Draper, owner of Happily Ever After
With business thriving, HEA relocated this year to a larger space in Cedar Rapids. But Draper admits she felt uncertain opening a store in Iowa.
“You never know exactly how a community is going to receive you, and whether or not Iowa was ready to have those same kinds of conversations that LA and New York are having," she said.
Any doubts disappeared quickly. Her first pop-up sold out within hours.
"It was obvious we needed to have more access to this stuff," she said. “At the time, I was doing deliveries, and I was running — almost all day sometimes — delivering books to people. It was very clear that there was an appetite in our area and a desire for this.”
Since moving to Cedar Rapids, Draper says business has nearly doubled.
“Part of that is just because we have more space and more books to sell, and more space for you to see the books that we have to sell," she said. "From an expectations perspective, I really hope it continues.”
Draper says the romance genre is evolving as it grows. Subgenres have flourished, broadening what love stories can look like. On her shelves, readers can find everything from spicy monster romances like Muscles and Monsters to horrors like Trad Wife and sweeping, slow burns like Promise Me.
The hockey romance boom, in particular, has proven hard to ignore.
In Des Moines, Shelf Love — a romance-only bookstore that opened last summer — has an entire table devoted to hockey titles similar to Heated Rivalry. Lately, that series has been nearly impossible to keep in stock.
“We're out of Heated Rivalry and Game Changer consistently, over and over again," owner Sarah Gardner Bergan said. "It's great."
Local authors are also helping meet the demand. Readers looking for their next hockey romance fix can turn to Iowa-based author Erin Nicholas’ Just Don’t Call It Love.
Iowa is home to a number of romance writers, including renowned author Leigh Michaels, who has written over 100 titles. HEA has dedicated an entire shelf to over a dozen local authors, including Iowa City-based Chloe Angyal and Des Moines-based Denise Williams. Bergan has hosted several events for them in her bubblegum-pink shop, which she says serves as a space for readers to enjoy the genre without judgment.
"There's just so much misogyny when it comes to the hate of romance, so having a safe space to enjoy romance, I think, is really important," she said. “I just think people look down on things that women enjoy. That's the truth of it, and the same thing for queer folks. So I feel like being a space for women and queer folks has been our biggest focus.”
Draper has observed the genre's shift to mainstream firsthand.
“I think people continue to talk about [romance literature] more, and they continue to embrace the idea that romance and romance books are a valid form of entertainment and escapism, and people don't feel like they have to hide it or justify it as much as they used to," she said. “It’s just become more mainstream, and people are willing to acknowledge it and embrace the idea that women deserve to see themselves represented in this way, specifically women and BIPOC authors, and I think there's a really interesting way of highlighting those authors in this particular field that maybe doesn't always happen in other ways.”
