Hey, it's Jess. We're off on Memorial Day, but with summer reading season coming up,

we wanted to bring back an episode we made a few months ago. It's on Book Talk, the corner of TikTok

that's all about books, and how it's transforming the publishing world. Here it is.

For Leah Koch, the romance novel is life.

She's loved romance since she was a teenager.

What is it that draws you so much to this type of writing?

Great question. Let's quickly define what a romance novel is.

You need two things to be a romance novel. You need a central love story and a happy ending.

And the happy ending, sometimes people try to get around for some reason. But you can't.

They have to be together and happy at the end. They do not have to be heterosexual married with a baby, but like one of them can't get

hit by a bus. Because that's a tragedy, right? Yeah, or a train la Anna Karenina. Anna Karenina is not a

romance novel. She dies. Got it, got it. Anyway, I read to have fun. Same. And romance novels

are fun.

Leah loves romance so much that in 2016, she and her sister opened up a bookstore devoted to it.

It's called The Rip Bodice, and it's got locations in L.A. and in Brooklyn.

The store is full of passionate experts who can help you find pretty much any kind of romance. So if you ask somebody for cowboy werewolves, number one, they're going to take your request very seriously.

And number two, they're going to say, okay, here are the two options that we have, but if you're interested in that, you might also be interested in cowboy mermaids or werewolf doctors.

Romance has always had its audience, but Leah says that over the last few years,

she's seen a surge of interest.

At first, it was just a few people, coming in with surprising requests.

They started asking for things that I wasn't expecting.

So, series that I had read and enjoyed but weren't like top of mind.

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