{"id":94215,"date":"2025-08-26T15:21:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T15:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/94215\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T15:21:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T15:21:09","slug":"deal-bookshop-sees-romantasy-novels-attract-new-wave-of-readers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/94215\/","title":{"rendered":"Deal bookshop sees ‘romantasy’ novels attract new wave of readers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JoJo Burn\/BBC<\/p>\n

Kayleigh Cooper helps run a monthly fantasy book club<\/p>\n

Staff at a bookshop in Kent say a surge in sales is due to a new generation of readers of romantasy novels.<\/p>\n

According to figures from the Publishers Association, the mix of romance and fantasy helped drive a rise of 18% in fiction revenue in 2024.<\/p>\n

The Deal Bookshop, which is connected to Waterstones, said a monthly fantasy book club at the store attracts all ages.<\/p>\n

Gemma Groombridge, the Deal shop’s manager, said: “There was a point when we just didn’t stock novels at all like Jilly Cooper, but this rise in romantasy has brought those romance readers back in.”<\/p>\n

Kayleigh Cooper, who helps run the monthly book club, returned to reading herself through the fantasy books and sub genres.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes they are just a really fun read and sometimes they are a beautiful exploration of grief,” she explained.<\/p>\n

“Most of the protagonists are women and they have beautiful journeys. <\/p>\n

“You find the decisions being made are consensual and are all about the power of women being brave in horrible situations.”<\/p>\n

Ms Cooper makes sure she puts an 18+ warning on reviews left on the store’s bookshelves to guide readers.<\/p>\n

“When people come in they will often ask if a book is spicy or not, and that basically means how much sex is there in it,” she added.<\/p>\n

Ms Cooper thinks it is the escapism that attracts young adults, particularly women, to the genre. <\/p>\n

She said: “Now all I want is a sword and maybe some armour – and a pet dragon.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jo Burn\/BBC Kayleigh Cooper helps run a monthly fantasy book club Staff at a bookshop in Kent say…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[457,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-94215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}