A new bookstore in Federal Hill wants romance readers to do more than just buy a book and leave. Bmore Romantic, which opened in October at 1205 Light St., is built around a cozy lounge where customers can relax, browse or settle in to read before they ever reach the register.
Owner Augusta Christensen, who lives in the Federal Hill neighborhood, describes Bmore Romantic as a dedicated space for romance novels, according to WBAL-TV. She wants visitors to feel they can relax and browse or read in the store's lounge, calling it a safe space for people to enjoy romance books. The shop is designed around that idea, with pink decor, fixtures and a curated book selection meant to celebrate the genre.
Christensen was inspired to open the store after spotting the vacant storefront during the National Library Week parade in April, per the same report. She also visited a romance bookstore in Brooklyn the year before launching her own shop. That comparison is worth noting: when The Ripped Bodice opened its Park Slope location in 2023, nearly 50 people lined up outside and the store hit capacity within an hour, according to the New York Times. That shop, devoted almost entirely to romance, had first opened in Culver City, California, in 2016 before expanding to Brooklyn.
What's on the Shelves at Bmore Romantic
Bmore Romantic stocks a wide range of subgenres, offering contemporary, fantasy, paranormal and dark romance alongside LGBTQ stories and classic romance titles, per WBAL-TV's reporting. The shop also features the historical romance series Bridgerton and carries works by local author BK Borison. Special editions of many titles line the shelves, and the station notes the store expects to receive more special editions ahead of the holiday season.
Beyond the books themselves, the shop offers new releases every Tuesday and has a coffee maker for browsers who want to settle in. It also provides space for book clubs and vendors, and features book-related products alongside its cozy reading lounge. Before the shop's grand opening, slated for mid-October, influencers were already flocking to the space and sharing videos of it, according to Inc.
A Genre on the Rise, and a Crowded Local Field
Christensen said romance is unfairly dismissed as unserious writing or reading, and she described the genre instead as a beautiful exploration of being human, relationships and love. She hopes Bmore Romantic becomes a place where people fall in love with books about love, per WBAL-TV.
The numbers back up her bet on the genre's momentum. Circana reported that year-to-date print sales for romance books were up 24 percent compared with the same period in 2024, with romance sales volume more than doubling over four years, the firm said. Romantasy and sports romance were each seeing triple-digit growth, and Circana's analyst pointed to a broader shift away from rosier romantic comedy toward darker-themed titles.
That growth has translated into a wave of new storefronts. More than 230 romance bookstores have opened across the country in the past three years, including more than 50 in 2026 alone, according to the American Booksellers Association and Publishers Weekly, as reported by Inc. The outlet attributes the boom to an uptick in romance reading that began during the pandemic and the rise of BookTok, where posts tagged #BookTok have racked up more than 370 billion views.
Baltimore itself is no exception to the trend; romance bookstores are increasing in number every year, per WBAL-TV. The metro area already has three other dedicated romance shops — Sweet Nothings, La Petite Mort and Romance-Ladia — all of which opened within the past year, Inc. reports. A 2023 New York Times account of the Brooklyn store scene also noted that younger readers are approaching the genre differently, with newer titles featuring a more diverse array of heroines and heroes than romance novels of the past.
