A new book community is popping up in Tucson β and it might make you fall in love.
Friends to Lovers is a pop-up store and the brainchild of four readers and friends turned co-owners. In just a couple of months, they have built a following on social media, put together a stacked inventory of romance books and hosted an event bringing together Tucson readers.
βRomance set my world on fire,β said Brittany Katter.
The pop-up is the result of Katterβs initial idea, something she started to develop while talking to her friend at local brewery Slow Body Beer who suggested she sell books from a shelf in the bar.
Katter shared the idea with her friend Chelsea Elias, who introduced her to Shelbie Webb, a romance book fanatic.
Webb, who dreamed of owning a bookstore herself, was immediately drawn to the idea.
βShelbie was like, βCan I get in on this?ββ Elias said. βAnd I was like, wait, I didn't know we could get in on this.β
The three included a fourth friend, Marlene Avelino, and started drawing up the plans for the mobile pop-up β and hopefully, one day, a brick-and-mortar in the future.
After getting legal things in order, they started collecting inventory. They used their own collections and scavenged used book sales until finally collecting a good starting number to throw their first pop-up event.
The event was held at Slow Body Beer and people from every part of the womenβs lives showed up, including coworkers.
Friends to Lovers had book shelves of romance novels set up at their first pop-up at Slow Body Beer.
βIt's interesting to see even like people that we knew from different worlds show up,β Avelino said. βI think the conversations (romance) opens up really gives us so much language to talk about things that are hard to bring up.β
And thatβs a big part of the culture the four are creating in their events. Friends to Lovers is more than a bookshop β it's a place where people, mainly women, can talk about intimate subjects and discover books that can help them enjoy reading while learning about their own relationships.
βWe haven't really been taught from a feminine perspective how to navigate relationships. In a good romance novel, youβre gonna get the opportunity to watch these people overcome hurdles,β Avelino said.
βAnd maybe romance is like the only place that centers women's pleasure,β Ketter chimed in.
All four friends find comfort in these stories, but they each enjoy different tropes and types of romance books.
It's not uncommon to find tropes like friends becoming lovers or falling in love with an enemy. The pop-up organizes and color-codes the books based on these tropes. Books also have βspice ratingsβ which label, using chile peppers, how βspicyβ the intimacy is.
The friends are planning their second pop-up to take place on Valentine's Day from 4-7 p.m. at Monsoon Chocolate CafΓ© + Market, 3630 E. Fort Lowell Road, where you can purchase a book or discuss your favorite novel with fellow romance lovers.
The friends hope their events will feel like parties, each one with a new theme. Naturally, "love" is the theme of the Valentine's Day event.
Romance books with specific tropes and intimate content have become a big topic of conversation on βBookTok,β a community of readers on TikTok.
βThere's a discourse that's happening online, and so we wanted to create that experience, but in person,β Elias said.
