Book Lovers Bookshop: We speak to the author behind the UK’s first brick and mortar romance-only bookshop

Romance may be one of the biggest money-making genres in the publishing industry, but it has historically been dismissed in literary circles due to outdated and biased opinions on its content and craft.

We spoke to Caden Armstrong, the 24-year-old romance author of Truthfully, Yours and owner of the UK’s first brick and mortar romance-only bookshop Book Lovers Bookshop about its beginnings, favourite romance tropes and how bookshops like theirs can help de-stigmatise the genre.

Hi Caden. Can you introduce yourself?

I am originally from Los Angeles, California. More specifically Topanga Canyon. I went to the American University of Paris for four years before I moved to Scotland to pursue a post graduate degree at Edinburgh Napier University in publishing. My partner and I just decided to stay in Edinburgh long term.

How did Book Lovers Bookshop come to fruition?

When I was 16, The Ripped Bodice opened in LA, and I absolutely loved going there with my mother and friends. I chaired an event there once. It was probably my favourite location in LA. When I moved [to Edinburgh], I had so much trouble finding romance books in bookshops. Even if they had a small table, it was often books that I had already read because I had read so much of the genre.

I soon had the kernel of this idea of wanting to open a romance bookshop, but I didn’t believe it could truly be a thing because I don’t have a background in business. I don’t have a background in finance. Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing when it came to that. But my friend sat me down and signed me up for the Princes Trust program, and I learned a lot through that. It was about a year and three months of planning before Book Lovers Bookshop opened – or at least before I got the keys to the location.

I didn’t really set out to open the first brick and mortar [romance] bookshop in the UK, but it just happened to be that way. Honestly, it’s just an honour to be open and meet all these wonderful readers and work with authors and publishers. There are days where I cannot believe this is my job. I am just really grateful for all the support Book Lovers has received by the community.

What did your love for the romance genre begin?

When I was 13, I saw a book-to-movie adaptation and was very frustrated by the ending. I immediately picked up the book series at my local Barnes & Noble and that started my obsession with Young Adult (YA) fiction. I soon started finding other bloggers on the internet until a friend’s mom looked at me and said, ‘you have all these opinions, why don’t you start your own blog?’ so I started a YouTube channel and Bookstagram called A Thousand Books to Read. By the time I was 16, I was working with publishers, and I did that all the way up to college and picked it back up after university until I decided to self-publish my book Truthfully, Yours.

I don’t really remember when I started reading adult romance but a core memory – my mom’s an actress and I grew up in the car with my mom on the way to auditions – was my mom and my aunt’s obsession with Nora Roberts books. My mom would play Nora Roberts books in the car and just skip over the sex scenes. I grew up listening to Nora Roberts, and I was obsessed with these books almost as much as she was. I think it was where I fell in love with the romance tropes, the romance characters and love stories in general.

Also, when I was 15, New Adult (NA) was a new genre in bookshops – college age romance – so it was a really good bridge from YA to NA and then it would move to adult and erotica. I would say NA actually accounts for much of the contemporary romance we read today, but it was very interesting that the genre was a huge part of bookshops, but it only lasted like two years.

Who are your favourite contemporary Scottish romance authors?

I will say that we do need more. We are always looking for Scottish authors. Samantha Young, Meg Jones, and obviously Jenny Colgan. We love her and her books. There is a problem where we have a lot more books set in Scotland than Scottish authors. We are always looking for new romance novels written by Scottish authors and there are a few in 2025 that we are super excited about. I love Hazel McBride who is a new debut romantasy author of A Fate Forged in Fire which comes out in May. We are also so excited for The Lady of the Lake by Jean Menzies.

What were your goals when opening Book Lovers Bookshop?

This sounds so dumb – it sounds so cheesy – but I mean it wholeheartedly: I didn’t go into this with finance goals. I went into this just to create a safe space for romance readers and for romance authors. There are authors that have a lot of trouble getting their book on shelves because of the stigma and those authors deserve a place on the shelf just as much as any other author of any other genre. And so, my goal is to create a space that allows that and allows readers to come in and know they are in a safe space. They can come in and ask ‘where is the monster smut section’ without judgement.

One big goal is just being able to expand our team because we are only a team of two right now. With my shop, I just want to focus on what we are doing. It’s not about capitalistic growth or turning my shop into a franchise. That’s not what I want – I just want to own my smut bookshop and exist and be happy. We are only six months in so it’s very strange to be talking about goals when we haven’t even hit the one-year mark but the goals we have are staying steady and to keep doing what we’re doing – being there for the community we have built in Edinburgh and the online community we have built with our social media.

What role does Book Lovers Bookshop play in both the Edinburgh community and online community?

I think we made a big splash. I don’t think it’s every day that a romance bookshop opens up in your community – especially a queer owned disabled bookshop that sells romance only, so I think it was definitely an impact of some sort. Similar to our goals, I think our impact is hopefully showing that there doesn’t need to be shame or embarrassment around reading or enjoying romance fiction. And also showing people how powerful romance is as a genre because I’m pretty sure – and you can check these figures – that romance is a billion-dollar genre and has been for a very long time.

So, I think our impact is showing that A) genre bookshops can be unique and cool and thrive and B) that romance deserves a space in the conversation and so do its authors and its publishers and its publicists etc.. I hope that is the impact that we have had.

And also on social media – the romance community on social media is already so big, so I don’t quite know if we have made an impact on social media but hopefully for me, it’s just letting people know that this space exists and hopefully letting other people who have a similar dream to me know that it’s possible. I hope by sharing our journey other people, not just us, can succeed in running a shop like ours and that if you chose to do something completely new and slightly weird and strange, still go for it because slightly weird and strange can be pretty amazing sometimes.

How did the name Book Lovers Bookshop come to fruition?

I spent a long time trying to figure out the name of the shop. I wanted to play off the idea of love and romance. I had this phrase I used while blogging where I would introduce every post by saying ‘Hi Book Lovers’ and that impacted the idea for the shop.

I also wanted something that people could read and be interested in and even if they didn’t read romance go ‘I want to walk into that shop.’ I think an important aspect of a shop like ours is introducing the idea of the wonderful genre of romance to people who may not necessarily pick it up. We are here for all readers, not just romance readers even though they are our market.

As an indie author, how do you juggle your writing career with owning and managing a bookshop?

I don’t!

I haven’t posted on my indie author account in nearly eight months… I wish I could say that I juggle everything perfectly, but the answer is no. I published my novel and very quickly realised that if I wanted to open Book Lovers Bookshop that I would have to pause, at least until I have a team and I am not working almost every day.

I feel weird saying that I kind of had to choose, but I had to choose which hat I wanted to have on and this is the one I saw myself – I don’t want to say doing more long term – but I think realized I couldn’t be the person who sits in my home writing by myself or even in a café by myself. I needed a job that would give me a lot more social interaction and when I became a bookseller, I just fell in love with it so much.

And also, I am autistic, so getting to talk about my special interest all day long five days a week is pretty wonderful. So, I just inherently knew that this is the direction I wanted my life to go and when I am able to pick up the pen or really open my laptop again, I am very excited for that, but I have chosen to focus on my shop – for now.

What are your favourite Romance tropes?

Enemies to lovers, of course. This is such a hard question. Fake dating is obviously one of my favourites. I love fated mates, that is one of my personal favourites. I am a dark romance girl, so I love a bodyguard romance or a marriage of convenience.

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