Being out and about in London, chances are you\u2019ve spotted someone reading the\u00a0A Court of Thorns and Roses book series by Sarah J Maas. These fantasy books, filled with faeries, hunters and X-rate scenes, first blew up on a literary corner of TikTok (AKA BookTok), and now you can\u2019t catch the tube in the capital without seeing someone reading it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now London has its first ever bookshop dedicated entirely to these kinds of romance books, as Saucy Books in Notting Hill officially opened at the end of\u00a0last month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While these kinds of books are\u00a0often called\u00a0\u2018smut\u2019 or \u2018fairy porn\u2019 (many of them are packed full of NSFW scenes), they are extremely popular, particularly among young women. According to data gathered from 7,000 British booksellers, in 2024 there were record sales of \u2018romance and sagas\u2019 books, making up to \u00a369 million. Sales of these \u2018romantasy\u2019 books even\u00a0pushed UK fiction revenue above \u00a31 billion for the first time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018The popularity of the store speaks for itself,\u2019 Sarah Maxwell, the founder of Saucy Books, told the Guardian<\/a>. \u2018We even had to ticket our first week and give time slots to customers.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n Saucy books even has a corner of the store dedicated entirely to erotic fiction, which Maxwell calls the \u2018smut hut\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n Maxwell told the Guardian that she thinks sexism, as well as \u2018snobbery and bias\u2019, is stopping these books, that are mainly read by women, from being as respected as they should be.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018I think there\u2019s an inherent misogyny around it. A lot of the time, the sorts of things that women like across arts and culture tends to get discounted. These books are about the female perspective and female gaze when most media is through the male gaze,\u2019 Maxwell said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Saucy Books is open at\u00a0232 Westbourne Park Road, W11 1EP now.\u00a0<\/p>\n 45 brilliant bookshops in London to visit in 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yungblud is opening a new music venue in central London<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Get the latest and greatest from the Big Smoke \u2013 from news and reviews to events and trends. Just\u00a0follow our Time Out London WhatsApp channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n