Growing up the daughter of a bibliophile, the “it doesn’t matter what you read, just read something” philosophy was instilled in me at an early age.  Like many others, I stopped reading in my teenage years only for the romance side of BookTok to rein me back in. During my time as a bookseller, I heard the shop’s #BookTokRecommends section being described as “chick-lit” and “not real literature”. While romance is a genre that is no stranger to scrutiny, be it at the hands of “outdated, patronising attitudes” (Preston, cited in Tivnan, 2022), Caden Armstrong, owner of Booklovers Book Shop acknowledged that the perception of the genre is changing due to readers fighting against the stigma placed on romance books (cited in Mitchell 2024). 

Image Credit: Taken from Edinburgh Women’s Fiction Festival Website.

On the weekend of 26th and 27th September I was fortunate enough to attend the Edinburgh Women’s Fiction Festival celebrating “writing for, by and about women” (Edinburgh Women’s Fiction Festival, 2025). There were some inspiring panels across the weekend, the most memorable for me being ‘A Fine Romance’ with authors Lucy Vine and Laura Wood, chaired by editor Molly Crawford of Simon and Schuster.  While this talk was informative and insightful, the banter between the three women and their inclusion of the audience made it feel like being at book club with your best friends. 

During their discussion, the panel touched on the publishing industry’s obsession with “tropes” and utilising them as a marketing tactic. Vine stated that “before publishing became obsessed with them, tropes were cliché” and a “bad thing” (2025). Tropes are a direct result of BookTok, with people on the platform going as far as calling the industry’s use of tropes “anti-intellectualism” (Fraser, 2024). While tropes are mainly used in the romance reader community (Fraser, 2023), Wood pointed out that “every writer you know uses tropes” (2025), Dickens and Lee Child to name but a few. 

The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary (2025) defines the word trope as “a theme that is important or repeated in literature, films, etc”

and evidently every literary genre has its own tropes. 

Wood (2025) linked the ongoing debate around tropes to the longstanding criticism the romance genre faces and its exclusion in “male spaces” (Vine, 2025), concluding that their dismissal comes down to one thing: misogyny.  With romance being a genre predominantly written and read by women, historically it has not been regarded as “highbrow” (Porter cited in Shepard, 2024).  However, on account of becoming more representative of our diverse society it’s clear that the romance genre is “one of the most forward-looking and cutting-edge in all of publishing” (Preston cited in Tivnan, 2022).

Arguably my favourite quote of the day came from the panel chair Molly Crawford stating, “you’re allowed to like things that feel familiar” (2025).  There are many different reading styles and for a certain type of reader, tropes are just a tool to find books they will like. What it ultimately comes down to is everybody should be allowed to enjoy whatever type of literature they like without feeling judged and if tropes keep people reading, I can’t see the issue. Based on romance regularly topping sales charts nationally and internationally, it’s clear for many the reading experience comes down to one thing: connection.

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Image taken at the ‘A Fine Romance’ panel with authors Lucy Vine and Laura Wood with attendees Karen Carbery (myself) and Sophia Smith

Bibliography:

Anon. (2025). “Trope,” Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, [online]. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/trope (Accessed: 13 October 2025).

Edinburgh Women’s Fiction Festival. (2025) ‘About Us.’ [online] Available at https://www.edwomensficfest.co.uk/about-1 (Accessed on 11 Oct 2025).

Fraser, K. (2024) Books on BookTok: Anti-intellectualism and current trends, The Bookseller. Available at: https://www.thebookseller.com/books/books-on-booktok-anti-intellectualism-and-current-trends (Accessed: 11 October 2025).

Fraser, K. (2023) Books on BookTok: 2022 debut popularity and the power of tropes, The Bookseller. Available at: https://www.thebookseller.com/books/books-on-booktok-2022-debut-popularity-and-the-power-of-tropes (Accessed: 11 October 2025).

Mitchell, J. (2024) Our romance with romance, The Bookseller. Available at: https://www.thebookseller.com/comment/our-romance-with-romance (Accessed: 11 October 2025).

Shepard, L. (2025) Measuring readers of romance, Penn Today. Available at: https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/measuring-readers-romance-literary-genre-digital-humanities (Accessed: 11 October 2025).

Tivnan, T. (2022) Preston finds perfect match at LBA with Starry Romance clients, The Bookseller. Available at: https://www.thebookseller.com/trade-interviews/preston-finds-perfect-match-at-lba-with-starry-romance-clients (Accessed: 11 October 2025).

Vine, L., Wood, L. & Crawford M. (2025). “A Fine Romance”, Edinburgh Women’s Fiction Festival (26 September 2025, Edinburgh). 

Image Credit:

Cover Image: Fontaines D.C. (2024) Fontaines DC. Available at: https://fontainesdc.com/products/romance-digital-download (Accessed: 13 October 2025).

Image 2: Edinburgh Women’s Fiction Festival logo. Taken from: https://www.edwomensficfest.co.uk/

Image 3: Anonymous. Edinburgh Women’s Fiction Festival [Christ Morningside Church] Taken 27 September 2025.