Multicultural and LGBTQ romance online searches are on the rise. According to our metadata experts, search traffic for the overall Romance category was up 17% in Q1 of 2021. Multicultural Romance and LGBTQ Romance share of traffic has increased considerably in the same time frame. Online search data gives us insight into what consumers are interested in buying.

Bookstore Romance Day is a day designed to give independent bookstores an opportunity to celebrate Romance fiction—its books, readers, and writers—and to strengthen the relationships between bookstores and the Romance community. (https://bookstoreromanceday.org/) 2021 marks the third year of this annual celebration.

After many weddings were cancelled or postponed in 2020 because of the pandemic, this year’s wedding season is expected to be much busier. Nearly half of couples with weddings originally scheduled for 2020 opted to postpone part of their wedding. In fact, nearly 32% hosted a ceremony in 2020 but postponed their reception, in hopes of having the wedding celebration they always imagined (The Know 2020 Real Wedding Study).

In April, online retailers see significant spikes for searches about relationships and marriage, such as “relationship books, marriage workbooks for couples, marriage books, marriage counseling books, sex books for married couples, books for couples”. The pandemic has surely impacted relationships, and this year’s sales are trending up.

With more people vaccinated and public places reopening, Covid-isolated readers are likely to be out and about in the summer of ’21. They’ll be looking for relaxation and fun, and PRH titles will be perfect companions, whether at the beach or relaxing on the back porch.

“Eric Jerome Dickey, the bestselling novelist who blended crime, romance and eroticism in “Sister, Sister,” “Waking With Enemies” and dozens of other stories about contemporary Black life, has died at age 59.” (The Washington Post).

The first annual Bookstore Romance Day is 8/17/19. With 61% of Romance books still being purchased in the physical format (according to Nielsen’s US Romance Landscape report), Romance is a great category for booksellers to be focusing on. This list features PRH’s best-in-category titles, from genre series titles to fiction with romance at its heart.