Romance books have been growing in popularity over the last few years. Now bookstores are following suit.

Carolyn Haering opened Mon Coeur, a romance bookstore, in Canton, Michigan just last year. The name means “my heart” in French.

Haering says she started the store because she believes the genre allows her to escape into a fun and typically happy story. She joined to discuss her store and recommend books about love.

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Since late last year, “Heated Rivalry”—a series about two male hockey players who fall in love— has taken the country by storm. 

The show’s stars, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, have made appearances at major events across North America. But before the “Heated Rivalry” story charmed the audience on screen, it seduced its readers as the second book in author Rachel Reid’s “Game Changers” series. 

Now the story represents the cultural moment we are in now: Romance novels exploded in popularity after the pandemic and LGBTQ+ romance stories are becoming more prevalent. To encapsulate the moment, we want to spotlight the queer love stories that came before it.

Queer love stories are not new, and “Heated Rivalry” scratches the surface of the plethora of stories that have been and continue to be written about LGBTQ+ romance.

Erin Bell, the director of the Writing Center at the University of Detroit Mercy and a researcher of women’s writing and literature, joined to help us pull back the layers of non-traditional love stories. 

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