Romance is literature's hottest genre, and this year the Tucson Festival of Books is turning up the heat with 13 romance authors, specializing in historical romance, LGBTQ+ centered love stories, steamy romantasy, and more.
“The spread of authors this year covers everything from the biggest smiles to the wildest sobs,” said Jessica Pryde, the romance genre lead for the book and author committee at the Tucson Festival of Books.
Some of the featured authors at this year's festival, March 14-15 at the University of Arizona, include Liana De La Rosa, Jaclyn Rodriguez, Jen DeLuca, Sarah T. Dubb, Regina Black and Jonny Garza Villa, among others.
With the popularity of book series like Sarah J. Maas’ “A Court of Thorns and Roses,” and “Fourth Wing,” by Rebecca Yarros, romance is taking the literary community by storm, and Pryde said the romance genre discussion panels and author signings are some of the most anticipated of the weekend.
“In 2022 we came back with events, and attendance at romance panels was wild. I was not expecting it. That was the first year I saw people actually waiting at the authors' signing tables before the panel started,” Pryde said. “Then last year, we kind of broke the festival with Ali Hazelwood. She wrote six books in four years, so she had a huge following, and there were lines to get into her panels, and half of the people couldn't get in.”
Ali Hazelwood was one of the featured romance authors at Tucson Festival of Books, 2025.
According to Pryde, the exponential increase in interest in romance books started with the pandemic lockdown.
“Romance has always been publishing's bread and butter,” she said. “But the actual public interest and actual readership grew by — I think the unofficial number was 300% — from before 2020 and after 2020.”
One of the biggest factors in the mainstream popularity of romance and romantasy reads, Pryde said, was social media.
“People started talking about it. We were all on our phones in 2020 and we all downloaded TikTok, and then book tok happened, and the algorithm started feeding certain things to people, and those books that might have had a pretty good splash among regular romance readers, suddenly had a huge audience,” she said.
A self-proclaimed “advocate for romance,” Pryde said one of the draws for readers of romance — and romantasy in particular — is the escapism the stories offer.
“You can leave what's happening in the modern world, because so much of romance is contemporary or even historical. You can sort of leave that behind and get dragons, and magic, and passion,” she said. “Dragons and sexy stuff and all of that will always make for a good story.”
Jen DeLuca, author of "Well Met" and "Ghost Business," will be a panelist at the Tucson Festival of Books on the March 14-15 weekend.
Tucson-based author Jen DeLuca, one of the romance authors set to appear at the festival, said she has always been drawn to the romance genre.
“I decided I wanted to write a romance novel, because I have always read them,” DeLuca said. “I love romance novels — just fun banter, boy meets girl, fun stuff — so I wrote one, and it was the most fun I had ever had writing something.”
Beyond the escapism readers can find in romance stories, DeLuca said the thing about romance that attracts readers is the guarantee of a happy ending.
“You know going in that everything's going to be okay, which I think especially these days, with the world on fire, we can use that. We need that reassurance,” she said. “Some people can disparage romance by saying it is formulaic or that it is predictable, which I personally find a little silly, because nobody really ever complains that if you pick up a mystery novel, the mystery is going to get solved.”
Picking up a romance novel, the reader knows it's about a couple, and their journey falling in love, and there’s a promise that everything is going to work out alright in the end, she said.
“The fun part of it is the journey to get there. Some of my favorite books are ones where things are happening and I am crying, and I am like, ‘how is this going to end up?’ " DeLuca said. “And it's just that really great feeling of being on a roller coaster, and you're screaming your head off, but you know you're gonna make it back safely.”
DeLuca published her debut novel, “Well Met,” in 2019, inspired by her experience volunteering at a renaissance festival.
“I was just looking around, and I was like, ‘this would be such a fun setting for a romance novel,’” she said. “You've got the knights, and the pirates, and the kilts, and the women in the gorgeous dresses, and you've got all the hand kissing, and sword fighting, and all that really romantic stuff, right? But you also have modern day society.”
Tucson author Jen DeLuca with her novel, “Well Traveled.”
The fifth book in that series comes out this fall, she said.
DeLuca will be speaking on three panels during the weekend, including “Funny, Fierce, Unapologetically Honest,” “Writing Love in Arizona,” and “Working Hard, Hardly Working,” and she said she is looking forward to talking about her most recent published book "Ghost Business,” which is the second book in a series set in a haunted Florida tourist town.
“One of the panels I'm on is actually about workplace romance, because Ghost Business is about two rival ghost tour operators, so they're kind of working together, but they're also working at odds,” DeLuca said. “A lot of what we're talking about in that panel is going to be the forced proximity, which is a very popular trope, because you're forced to be in the same place even though you may not necessarily want to be because either you don't like this person and it's an enemies become lovers situation, or it's ‘I'm really attracted to this person, I need to stay away from them, but I can't get away.’”
In total, attendees can expect 15 romance-related panels and workshops over the weekend, Pryde said.
“We're opening the festival with ‘Writing Across Romance Genres',” she said. “Katee Robert and Cat Sebastian and Jessie Mihalik have all written in different genres in romance, so they're going to talk about what it's like to shift between historical and fantasy or contemporary or any sci fi and fantasy, or any of that.”
"We've got a panel of authors who write both YA and adult,” Pryde said. “We've got a couple of workshops that I hope people are interested in: Katee Robert is talking about crowdfunding, and Regina Black is just going to be talking about how to murder people with your books.”
The grand finale of the festival will be the “Coming of Rage” panel at 4 p.m. on Sunday, March 15.
“Jaclyn Rodriguez, Jessie Mihalik, and Katee Robert all have very like vengeance- and battle-related stories, and they channel a lot of good trouble into their books, so I think that'll be a really great panel,” Pryde said. “And then, if people don't want to do the ‘Coming of Rage,’ Jen DeLuca is going to be on a cross genre panel with Hannah Dasher.”
Both Pryde and DeLuca said they are looking forward to seeing the romance community grow, and welcoming new fans with panels that are inclusive whether you are a veteran romance reader or have never picked up a romance novel in your life.
“It's gotten just bigger and better every single year,” DeLuca said. “And I don't see it getting smaller anytime soon."
