Meet Edinburgh owner of UK's first romance bookstore who spent wedding money to sweep readers off their feet

Romance readers are in for a treat as the UK’s first romance fiction bookshop gets ready to open in Edinburgh.

Located just off the Meadows, Book Lovers Bookshop will almost exclusively sell romance novels making it the first brick and mortar store of its kind in the UK.

It is the brainchild of Caden Armstrong, a bookseller originally from the United States where romance bookshops are on the rise as readers look to create a home for the genre which has often been hidden among the shelves.

Caden Armstrong is the owner of Book Lovers Bookshop in Edinburgh, the UK's first brick and mortar romance book store. | Caden Armstrong / Book Lovers Bookshop

“One of the things that made me want to open up Book Lovers is that when I moved to Edinburgh, I immediately went searching for the romance community here and it's not non-existent, it was invisible,” she said.

After growing up in Los Angeles – which is home to the country’s first romance bookstore, The Ripped Bodice – Caden was frustrated by the lack of choice on offer.

“When I first moved here, there was barely any romance fiction in any of the bookshops in Edinburgh, which was wild to me. And you know if it was in a bookshop, it was mixed in with fiction. There were no romance sections.

“Since then, that's changed.”

Shifting attitudes toward romance books

Highlighting shops such as Lighthouse Books and The Edinburgh Bookshop, Caden recognises that attitudes toward romance novels are changing.

“I think at some bookshops they still call it like a ‘summer reads’ table or ‘what's on BookTok’. So there's still a hesitance to really name it romance.”

Despite now owning their own bookshop, Caden hadn’t initially set out to do so.

She became interested in reading at 13, something which she describes as a “full autism hyperfixation”, and by the age of 16 had decided that she wanted to be a writer.

This led to her leaving the United States to study at the American University of Paris. After graduating with a degree in history and creative writing, fittingly, Caden followed their heart and moved to Edinburgh in order to be closer to their partner who was studying at the University of Aberdeen.

After moving to Scotland, she began studying a postgraduate degree in publishing at Edinburgh Napier University, and it was during this time that Caden realised she wanted to open up her own bookshop.

“I've worked in publishing for about 10 years now but it was on the influencing side of publishing,” she explained.

“I started a book YouTube channel and book Instagram when I was 15. That became my passion and job for about seven years, before I took a step back and decided that I wanted to more go into writing and book selling.”

And the 24-year-old is well on her way to achieving those goals, having published her first book at the start of the year – a romance novel set in Stonehaven – and with the book shop’s opening right around the corner.

Online community helped raise almost £8,000 for UK’s first romance bookshop

“I'm just out of uni and I was lucky enough to have a savings that was gifted to me by a family member that was supposed to go towards a wedding. I basically looked at my partner, who is now my husband, and I was like ‘so this isn't gonna go towards a wedding, I'm gonna open up a romance, smutty bookshop with it’. And he was just kind of like, ‘okay, cool’.”

While the savings were enough to help get Book Lovers Bookshop off the ground, some additional funding was needed. As such, Caden decided to begin a Crowdfunder to help raise money for the shop.

She explained: “Romance, you'll find, is in a very tight knit, very incredible community, and I think that's because, for the longest time, romance hasn't really been accepted. So the community itself really supports each other and gets really, really excited [and] I knew, because we are a community space, that I really wanted to reach out to the community for help.

“That was why we started the Crowdfunder and we raised just under £8,000, which is way more than I thought we would.”

She added: “I'm so grateful and thankful to everyone who donated.”

The Crowdfunder offered a number of rewards to those who donated, including signed copies of romance novels – donated by the authors themselves – sessions with publishing industry experts and even virtual book club visits from authors.

As an almost lifelong fan of the genre, the perks offered as part of the fundraiser reflect Caden’s long term goals for the bookshop which she hopes becomes a safe space for the community.

She said: “One of the reasons why I wanted to start Book Lovers is to give the romance community a space in the UK, and also to give a place for romance authors to come and see their books on the shelf and do events.

“But mainly [it’s] also for readers to feel safe coming into a shop and not having to sneakily look at the romance section and be like [shyly] ‘do you have this monster romance?’ – I'll be like, ‘Yes, it's over there, which type of monster romance do you want?’

“So this is truly me creating a space for our community of romance readers, and as a place that they can come and not be judged and they can be celebrated.”

Book Lovers Bookshop plans to sell all types of romance novels as well as having small sections dedicated to the likes of graphic novels with romance plots as well as non-fiction books centring on topics such as sexual health, identity and queerness.

As a queer-identifying person who is also autistic, it is important for her to create an environment which supports diverse voices and allows people to explore their identity safely.

“Romance is a very diverse genre, but you have to be looking for that diversity. You have to be wanting to read diversely.

“One of the things that I hope to do with this bookshop is uplift those amazing, diverse authors within the genre and give them a space that they might not be able to get at larger chain shops that only want to stock, in their mind, what is popular. Even though these diverse authors are popular and they deserve to be on the shelf.”

It’s clear that their vision for the shop has resonated with many romance readers around the country, with Caden calling the response “incredible”.

“I remember when I first kind of started talking about it, I think a few people were like, ‘okay’. And then I had a lot of people go, ‘oh, my God, we need that’. I think those were the people that made me really feel like I could do this.

“There's a huge community for romance readers here and they've been neglected for so long and so I knew that there was going to be some excitement. The excitement that we've gotten has been incredible and honestly it's just continuing day by day. Like a recent video of ours has gone baby viral. It has like 40,000 views and it's still growing.”

Getting Book Lovers Bookshop off the ground involved ‘very big learning curve’

With the comment section of the post full of romance readers eagerly anticipating the store’s opening, Caden is very much working hard behind the scenes to make her dream a reality.

“What else needs to be done at the shop? A lot,” they laughed. “What's good is we're kind of past the non fun things, which is a lot of administration. A lot of people forget that bookshops are businesses and there's a lot that goes into prepping just to even get to the point where we're at.

“It's not just ‘open a premises, do all the fun design and then you order books’. There's a lot of accounts that need to be opened. There's a lot of administrative stuff.”

And for someone without a background in business, there has been a “very, very big learning curve”.

They explained: “I don't have a background in business. Never in my life did I think ‘oh yeah, I'm gonna open up my own business in the future’. No. So I really had to learn a lot.”

Caden continued: “For me going in, I knew that my strengths were that I knew the industry, I know the community and I know what we're selling, very, very well. I also know how to work as a bookseller, but I learned a lot through my job at The Edinburgh Bookshop.

“Marie, who's the owner there, has kind of been my mentor and she has been such a huge help in me understanding the industry for bookselling here in the UK.”

Caden Armstrong is the owner of Book Lovers Bookshop, the UK's first brick and mortar romance bookstore. | Caden Armstrong / Book Lovers Bookshop

There have been several other challenges for Caden in the process.

“I think the other [difficult] thing, unfortunately, is what a lot of other femme-presenting people face in business and it's just the fact that I am young, I am femme-presenting – a lot of people don't take me seriously.

“And you know, it's just overcoming that and saying like, ‘no, you know, I am going to do this wild thing and open up a romance bookshop that sells smut’, like a lot of people don't take that seriously either.

“So I was kind of coming into a space where I knew that my business was hard to take seriously and that I'm a little hard to take seriously so that was also something I had to overcome as well.”

Caden is also disabled which means that she has had to approach opening her own business with this in mind, meaning that her journey may look slightly different than others.

But as a result of her perseverance, the shop is coming together.

With the colour scheme picked out – pastel rainbow, if you were wondering – the flooring having been installed and bookshelves soon to be delivered, Caden is waiting for a few days free of rain to get the shop front painted an “outside of the box” bright pink which can be seen through the trees.

With so much of the support for Book Lovers coming from social media such as TikTok and Instagram, Caden has been keeping their followers updated on its progress with the “Bookshop Diaries”.

With plans of grouping novels by subgenres such as sports romance, dark romance, romantasy (fantasy romance) and more, once the shop is open she hopes to start a bi-monthly book club and, eventually, to host events and, if possible, start stocking independent works.

But for now, Book Lovers Bookshop has a team of just one.

As a “baby business” Caden is keen to cut as many costs as possible and is preparing for a slow start with hopes of being able to hire someone further down the line.

When will Edinburgh’s romance bookshop open?

Book Lovers Bookshop will officially open on Saturday, August 17, 2024.

Following the store’s opening weekend it will then be open from Wednesday to Sunday each week, from 11am to 6pm. Caden was keen to have the shop up running before the first week in September, which is when RARE Edinburgh will take place.

Run by Romance Author & Reader Events, more than 100 romance authors are set to appear across the festival, including names such as Patricia Briggs, Penelope Douglas, Rebecca Yarros and more.

Where to find Book Lovers Bookshop

You can find Book Lovers Bookshop at 6 Melville Terrace, Newington, Edinburgh, EH9 1ND.