Starlin Marot Opens UK’s First Romantasy-Only Bookshop, Selling 950 Books in Week 1
Updated
Updated · observer.co.uk · Jul 19
Starlin Marot Opens UK’s First Romantasy-Only Bookshop, Selling 950 Books in Week 1
1 articles · Updated · observer.co.uk · Jul 19
Summary
Bad Girl Books opened in Oxford as the UK’s first romantasy-only shop after Starlin Marot turned BookTok popularity into a permanent store, selling 950 books in its first week.
50,000 views and 1,000 bookings for Marot’s first pop-up within a day helped drive four sold-out events, and crowdfunding from followers financed the shop.
80 million-plus BookTok videos have helped push readers offline into clubs, events and niche stores; TikTok says 78% of BookTok users report reading more and 79% bought a book in the last year.
Six specialty romance or romantasy bookshops opened across the UK in the past year, even as independent booksellers remain under long-term pressure from Amazon and wider reading rates stay weak.
36.1% of children and young people in the UK said they enjoyed reading in 2026, up from 32.7% a year earlier, while critics still question whether BookTok builds lasting reading habits or mainly turns books into lifestyle markers.