Books on BookTok: love is in the air
With Valentine’s Day on the horizon, this week creators were asked about the most popular romance books on the platform and their most anticipated releases in the genre this year.
Ali Hazelwood came out on top. All the creators mentioned the online fervour for Deep End (Little, Brown), which published on 4th February. The romance follows competitive diver and Stanford student Scarlett and swimmer Luka as the pair reach an arrangement in the lead up to the Olympics, but things become complicated when love is involved. “Everyone has been highly anticipating the book’s release,” said Sanziana-Dana (@sanzireads; 2,810 followers). Alice (@aliceandherbookshelf; 994 followers) agreed that it is “everywhere at the moment” and both Samantha (@samfallingbooks; 56,000 followers) and Brittany (@whatbritreads; 57,700 followers) noted that Deep End is among the big romance releases this year. The latter also believes that “sports romance is coming back in a big way”. The hashtag – #sportsromance – has been used in over 352,000 posts on TikTok at the time of writing.
Layne Fargo’s The Favourites (Vintage), a reimagining of Wuthering Heights set in the world of professional ice dance, was also picked by Alice as one of the most popular new additions to the romance genre. Speaking on sports romances in an interview with The Bookseller, Fargo said: “To be an elite athlete you have to be so driven, so disciplined, so ambitious, and I think, in a lot of cases, there’s not really room for love or relationships. I see this a lot in sports romances where it’s like: ‘I can’t get involved with this person right now because I’m trying to make it to the Olympics, I’m trying to win the championship or whatever.’ So, that creates conflict right away.”
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Alice is also seeing “a lot” of content about books by Elsie Silver and Liz Tomforde. Other nods went to Hannah Bonam-Young’s Out on a Limb (Bedford Square Publishers) from Sanziana-Dana and Brittany. Bonam-Young was listed alongside Hannah Grace’s Daydream (Simon & Schuster) and Bal Khabra’s Spiral (Bloomsbury) by Brittany as currently among the most popular romance books on BookTok: “I think I’m on the side of romance BookTok that shops at The Works because it’s always titles they conveniently stock with lovely-sprayed edges that I keep seeing.” She added the “usual suspects” are “doing well”, including Ana Huang, Silver, BK Borison, Hazelwood and Abby Jimenez. “I just love books with palpable chemistry that feels utterly believable. Somewhat emotional along the way but happily ever after, with some great humour.”
Jimenez’s Say You’ll Remember (Little, Brown) and Borison’s First Time Caller (Pan), a romance inspired by Sleepless In Seattle, publishing on the 13th February, both got mentions alongside Emily Henry’s Great Big Beautiful Life (Viking). Henry’s romances received a score of mentions from the creators. Brittany and Sanziana-Dana both listed Happy Place (Viking) among their favourite romance books, while Alice and Samantha selected Book Lovers (Viking). “When do Emily Henry’s books disappoint?” said Alice.
The popularity of romantasy, Brittany and Alice believe, is impacting the romance tropes people want to see on the page. As the genre “continues to reign supreme”, Brittany explained, “people are very much still into the enemies-to-lovers trope and there are some great dark academia releases coming next year that lean into the academic rivals-to-lovers". Alice agreed that readers are “loving” the enemies-to-lovers trope often prevalent in romantasy. “Fake dating, marriage-in-trouble and second-chance romance are always ones that do really well,” she added.
