Now that 2022, is in the books, what did you notice about it in romance? From my perspective, there definitely were some trends. Here, in no particular order, are some things I think happened.
- Was it just me or were there a lot more cooking/reality TV based shows?
- Lead that struggled with mental illness seemed to be a lot more prevalent.
- BokTok sold more romances than ANYTHING… for better or worse. This has helped contemporary romances and self-pubbed authors rule.
- Sexually diverse leads were everywhere compared to earlier years. Trans, gay, asexual, polyamorous–it felt like this was the year that non-het lovers were found in every sub-genre.
- Leads must now be saving the world to be respected. Across genres, heroines and heroes are trying to, no matter their context, to rescue the poor, topple the patriarchy, eradicate disease, etc….
- Neurodivergent characters also began to appear with far more frequency in the past.
- Nothing has dethroned cartoon covers.
What do you think? Did you notice these trends? What did I miss? What did I get wrong?
Impenitent social media enthusiast. Relational trend spotter. Enjoys both carpe diem and the fish of the day.
Booktok is wildly influential. Particularly in the all powerful 30-ish and under market.
I am not on Tik Tok but I see it passed on inInstagram, YouTube, Twitter etc.
Lots of hype, making a book “viral” and a need to keep coming up with “new” content for social media.
There are a lot of tie ins with “aesthetics”. A huge part of it is showing how you have “styled” your books, your bookshelves, your reading area. Making flatlays with the books. Collecting ones with gorgeous covers.
There is also a huge emphasis on tracking books. How many have you read, large reading goals, spreadsheets and monthly graphic of the book covers you read each month.
The books are much more diverse than “traditional publishing” with plenty of neurodiverse heroes and heroines, heroines of all sizes, ethnically diverse and LGBTQ protagonists. Reverse harem and MMF, MFM, MM are very prevalent.
The downside for me is the emphasis on quick blurb reviews, gushing reviews, and the huge importance of “aesthetics”.
The gushing reviews would turn me off straight away. Back in the day when I could read print books, mine were organised alphabetically by author regardless of the size of the book or the image on the cover! The idea of putting one book next to another because their cover colours match is just… daft. I mean, how are you supposed to find it when you want to read it if you haven’t organised your collection in any useful way?!
I agree, and I’m definitely showing my age in my opinions, but I feel like with BookTok, as with much of social media, no matter what people are doing- they have one part of their brain thinking of how things will “look”while they are doing it.
Reading was always, for me, a more solitary and cerebral exercise. Books were arranged by subject, author and/or how accessible they needed to be for me.
BookTok has made reading a more visual and “social” exercise. And while that’s fantastic for finding like minded readers, discussions, reviews and recommendations it is (IMHO) encouraging the opposite of the old mantra “You can’t judge a book by the cover”.
BookTok seems to me like the ultimate street team thing–it has so much to do with the personality of the author rather than the quality of the writing…..
All the print books in my collection are organized by genre (and within genre, by author). If I had to remember what color the book’s spine was before I could find it, either I would have very few books, or the collection would exist to be admired rather than read.
My physical books are mostly in 3 large sheds on our back patio, separated into hardcover + trade paperback together and mass-market paperbacks together in shelves with closer spacing, then by major genre (F&SF, romance, mystery, non-fiction), then alphabetical by author followed by anthologies alphabetical by editor, then alphabetical by title, except when I know about series. All series books by an author precede all non-series books by that author, with series books in series reading order if I know it and publication order if I don’t know otherwise. One set of shelves in the house pulls out all romances with 3 or more stars for humor.
“BookTok is approaching 100 Billion views.” Romance had four of the five top engagement. Whoa.
“Romance is also getting a little more diverse. According to an analysis by the Ripped Bodice bookstore, 12% of the books published by major romance imprints in 2021 were written by Black, Indigenous and other authors of color. That’s up from a low of 6.2% in 2017. Yet any strides toward a more diverse bookshelf aren’t necessarily reflected on TikTok, where the majority of breakout books have been by White authors.”
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/a-romance-book-boom-fueled-by-tiktok-and-pandemic-blues-1.1863894#:~:text=(Bloomberg)%20%2D%2D%20Love%20conquers%20all,December%2C%20according%20to%20NPD%20Group
BookTok trope-ification debate: How hashtagging titles is affecting authors and readers. (slate.com)
Interesting article? I like to hear that romance and ya continued to sell well in 2022. But, hashtagging tropes is apparently “a thing” affecting the industry? It’s like the writer of the article is unaware that GoodReads has been shelving and review sites like AAR have been tagging for years . . .
Slate is the worst.
Good grief – it’s like nobody ever had any good ideas before TikTok.
Or that nobody read romance before Tik Tok.
My local bookstores have tables front and center with booktok recommendations! So that’s definitely a trend, and I’m noticing older books on there too, such as The Hating Game, anything by Colleen Hoover, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me, and Elle Kennedy’s college romances.
Romances on platforms that create more work and record keeping for me. For years, I had a Nook and happily added more and more romances to it. Then some authors were not available on Nook and I ended up having to buy a Kindle. A couple of authors are split — I started with them on Nook and had to move to Kindle.
The latest annoyance for me is that Eloisa James is putting work on Kindle via Amazon Vella. I am just not reading them. The whole thing (Vella) sounds like a gimmicky pain in the butt.
One of my friends is suggesting I get Kobo for some books. Sigh.
Plus, of course, I am aware that I spend plenty on books that, courtesy of digital rights lawyers, I don’t actually own and can’t consolidate in one database.
Aren’t the Vella stories short and serialized? That is NOT for me!
I believe so. It seems like a tech version of Dickensian publishing.
I do enjoy the romances with older characters. Even if they are part of a secondary story arc, it is always something I have enjoyed. I think the first time I noticed it in a romance was 30 or 40 years ago, with a contemporary that featured single parents getting together when their adult or barely-adult kids were romancing each other.
Jayne Ann Krentz has some Roaring Twenties romances out.
Re: JAK. Yes, I enjoyed the Burning Cove series.
Anna Lee Huber’s Verity Kent Mysteries are set in the 1920s.
I’m really enjoying the 1920s set hist roms, especially Allie Therin and KJ Charles series.
So am I. That period in history feels more glamourous than most other eras.
Have you ever watched The House of Eliott? So glam!
No! Yay, it’s available on Prime. I recommend Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries series—1920s female detective tv series set in Australia…not only was the whole series excellent but Phryne’s costumes are amazing. The 2020 feature film (Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears) was a satisfying conclusion. :D
I have seen it and I like it but the characters don’t evolve in enough ways for me over the series. The clothes are great… but still not as great as those from The House of Elliot.
I love that series! Phryne is fun and the mysteries are excellent!
I should give it another whirl. I wanted more Jack.
Different width: Back in the day when I worked at newspapers and printed news was part of daily life, my paper and other papers had to change column widths and the number of columns more than once because paper producers just… narrowed the rolls of paper they were selling. It was a way to slow down the rate of price increases per roll, just like some canned goods have shrunk over the years.
The change in mass market book dimensions may be due to marketing or something else, but there is a good chance it has something to do with the paper market, not the book market.
There were paper shortages etc. during the pandemic, too, which may have some sort of bearing on that.
But the books are wider! Which is what I don’t get. I buy series collections (e.g. In Death) exclusively in mass market paperback to optimize available space on my bookshelves. News mmp are wider so they take up more depth.
I was thinking the width change was to make the text size larger and more readable.
What I notice is the dearth of good, meaty historicals.
I feel as though part of that is caused by Book Tok and the challenge of mass marketing today. Book Tok is not for historicals or, I’d wager, books with meaty depth. An author recently told me, off the record, that traditional mass marketing is a disaster for most romance authors these days–too little staff, too many bottom line executives chasing the almighty dollar.
It feels as if Avon historicals have almost vanished from promotion which is a bummer. Montlake is doing them but all the covers look interchangeable and I don’t know most of the authors and Montlake doesn’t reach out to review sites.
It’s a conundrum.
Sadly, that’s not a new phenomenon. I agree with what Dabney says about the challenges of mass promotion, but the sad fact is that there’s very little decent HR to promote anyway. All the heroes and heroines in HR are, as she says, preoccupied with saving the world, ans they speak and behave like 21st century people in period dress. I think I read a grand total of three good HRs last year and two of those were m/m.
Well, AAR gave 14 DIKs to historical romances in 2022. So it’s not quite that bleak!
I wonder how much that depends on the reviewer’s tolerance of wallpaper historicals. I think historical accuracy stops some reviewers from being able to give DIKs to books when others might.
I admit I have a low level of tolerance for certain types of historical inaccuracy. Of course, I realise that things like medical care and personal hygene were way different “back then” so I don’t get worked up about people who bathe regularly and have good teeth, or about the ripped heroes with full heads of hair etc. Those are kind of romance ‘conventions’ if you like, and I think all HR readers are perpared to suspend disbelief that far.
I could write a much longer comment about my issues with current HR, but I don’t want to start a row.
Different strokes for different folks. Here at AAR, no one’s choices are wrong!
Everyone has things they care about and historical accuracy–which is highly debated in romance–is just one. If a reviewer or a reader loves a book, they love the book. I don’t give a damn about getting titles correct, making sure that you’ve correctly named household objects, or any number of things that wig out others. I, however, struggle to love novels with plots that don’t make sense, characters that behave in ways that contradict everything an author has told us about them, or books where the timeline is very hard to follow. That’s just me and my biases are reflected in my reviews.
There’s good stuff out there, it just needs to be found out!
I agree. The strike at Harper Collins has actually, from my perspective, made finding HR in particular hard. All those wildly underpaid employees aren’t sending out blurbs or OK-ing ARC requests. Across trad publishing, those jobs have paid so little and are always being axed.
Hearing about how this has effected Harlequin (or not in this case, apparently they’re not in the union) has been interesting. It’s just awful, I hope HC gives the strikers what they’re asking for.
To focus on the historical side of things alone, We live in a world where Caroline Linden and Mimi Matthews keep putting out good stuff. I’m shocked no mainstream publisher has snapped up Mia Vincy at this point.
Even though I expanded my HR reading from Regencies to add Georgians a few years ago, I find new titles difficult to track down. Even though historicals are added to my Nook or Kindle when I can find them, the recommendations I get from Nook and Kindle often are way off compared to my reading habits and preferences.
I’ve noticed a trend toward body positivity, mostly related to weight. Most romance heroines are either slim or, if somewhat more rounded, “voluptuous” (whatever that may mean), but there are now more who are closer in size/weight to the actual average American woman. I’ve not read many of them and it’s not something I seek out, despite being, like Precious Ramotswe of the Alexander McCall Smith #1 Ladies Detective Agency, “traditionally built”.
The two biggest genres I see on TikTok are fantasy and spicy contemporary. Next biggest are Mystery/Suspense and Romcoms. I don’t see many historical romance TikToks. I see fewer TikToks on Colleen Hoover’s books than I did earlier in the year. Also, I’m seeing more reader conventions lately, with mostly Indie Authors-Steamy Lit Con, Anaheim, in Aug., Readers take Denver in March, Appolycon in DC in Aug., Book Bonanza, TX in June and Barnes and Noble is even hosting one in NYC, B&N Toks books in Feb.
The Fake dating trend seems to still be going strong in both CR and HR. Are there that many real couples that fake date in the world?
More reality TV shows have competitors that are “viral sensations” for example TikToker Charlie D’Amelio on Dancing With the Stars, Kim and Penn Holderness on Amazing Race, and many challengers on cooking shows.
I’m not very sure, but the trends I’ve seen this year are mainly these:
I think hockey has been the preferred sport in romance for quite a while now, but I think you’re spot on with your comment re. CR and WF becoming closer – I’ve had several conversations with our reviewers this year about not being sure whether to categorise a book as one or the other.
I think there’s genre blurring everywhere in art these days. Music, film, tv shows, and books all are expanding their definitions of what is the genre, who can create it (although that is very debated), and what it encompasses.
I think genre-blurring is an inevitable result of the decline in gatekeeping by traditional (i.e., print first) publishers. I have very mixed emotions about the decline of editors and editing in publishing in general and in romance specifically.
I wonder how much of the decline in the number of quality historical romances is due to the decrease in influence and availability of top-notch editors.
And the pressure to publish multiple books a year.
The genre-blurring is a trend I’ve noticed in recent years, too. Some of my favorite romances of 2022 (The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle, The Librarian Spy, Other Birds) were all listed as women’s fiction. Some of the romances I picked up were more women’s fiction than romance.
I’ve noticed more references to Covid—or perhaps more accurately, references to the easing of pandemic restrictions. I’ve also noticed, in light of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, several plots that flashback to the heroine’s decision to terminate a pregnancy when she was younger—this is shown as a difficult choice but one that was the best for the heroine at a time when she was ill-equipped to be a parent.
One trend I’m glad to see a lessening of is the heroine opening a cupcake shop or other specialty baked-goods place—especially since it’s always an immediate success and there’s little reference to the ongoing labor and time commitment required to keep it going.
As for illustrated romance covers, I continue to hate them, but I will say I thought the cover for Ava Wilder’s HOW TO FAKE IT IN HOLLYWOOD was spot-on—a fact which really only becomes apparent after you finish the book and notice that the people on the cover seem awkward and aren’t actually interacting with each other, and you can’t see their expressions because they literally have stars in their eyes. The rare case of an illustrated cover that works for the book, imho.
I agree with most of these, although I’m coming at some at of them second hand in the sense that I don’t do BookTok so have only read about what’s been going on there (and the Colleen Hoover phenomenon!) and reading blurbs and our reviews about the baking/reality show themes.
I continue to dislike most cartoon covers – I won’t deny there have been some really good ones (the one for KJ Charles’ upcoming The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen, coming out in March is great) – but I’ve seen a lot of complaints over the last couple of years about how they can be very misleading as to the content of the book.
The one I have to disagree with you on is the one about sexually diverse characters – or perhaps to suggest that maybe you should have added a caveat and said “in m/f romance”, because there have been characters of different genders and sexualities in queer romances for years. I’m currently reading a series with an asexual MC, I just listened to an audiobook with a demiromantic MC, and I’ve read quite a few stories featuring demisexual MCs, non-binary and trans characters etc. I don’t read poly books becuase they’re not my thing, but there are LOADS of them around in queer romance.
With that said, it can only be a good thing if more and more non-het charactrers are showing up more in ‘mainstream’ romance.
Off topic: The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen is set in Romney Marsh. I had not heard of the marsh (that I recall) until Stephanie Laurens set The Reckless Bride (Black Cobra #4) partially in the marsh. Then came Stella Riley’s second Brandon Brothers book, Under a Dark Moon. Are there any other HR books set in the marsh?
The first exposure to Romney Marsh that I recall was a movie and/or TV series many decades ago (1960s, I think) about The Scarecrow. I don’t recall if it included any romance, but I’m pretty sure it was based on this non-romance series by Russell Thorndike:
Doctor Syn of Romney Marsh
Doctor Syn (1915)
Doctor Syn On The High Seas (1935)
Doctor Syn Returns (1936)
aka The Scarecrow Rides
The Further Adventures Of Doctor Syn (1936)
aka Christopher Syn
Courageous Exploits of Doctor Syn (1938)
The Amazing Quest Of Doctor Syn (1939)
The Shadow of Doctor Syn (1944)
Kasey Michaels had a Romney Marsh romance series some years ago:
1. A Gentleman by Any Other Name (2006)
2. The Dangerous Debutante (2006)
3. Beware of Virtuous Women (2006)
4. A Most Unsuitable Groom (2007)
5. A Reckless Beauty (2007)
6. Return of the Prodigal (2007)
7. Becket’s Last Stand (2007)