Laurelin Paige had given up on sleep after her newborn refused to rest. She needed something to fill the quiet hours, a creative project, and began writing a romance novel. When she finished the book, she found an agent. Two months later, Paige had sold enough books to quit her other jobs.
On Valentine’s Day 2025, Paige opened Flutter Romance Bookstore in Lakeway, Texas, in a white, wood-paneled house with a forest-green roof and a wraparound porch. The idea was a romance-only bookstore, which would give the genre room to breathe and display books within fantasy, thriller, erotica, young adult, and queer literature sections. Paige imagined a space that the community could use: one for women, for queer people, for all romance enthusiasts. It would also provide shelf space for local and indie authors trying to write within a crowded market. “Amazon runs off the backs of romance authors,” Paige explained.
Five months after opening day, a group animatedly talks at one end of Flutter’s porch as they rip bedazzled brown construction paper off of their newly bought novels. On the opposite end, a young woman in sunglasses poses for a picture on a couch shaped like pink lips. It’s a Saturday decorate-your-own-blind-book event, and the store is packed. Flutter has a busy event calendar: The book-cover-bedazzling nights are always popular, when attendees glue tiny gems and sequins onto their favorites, and this summer, Fridays have been movie nights. (The 2005 Pride & Prejudice will be playing on August 8.) Paige is also teaching a monthly writing workshop for aspiring authors through October called “Write Me a Love Story.”
Paige isn’t the first to think of the idea, and notes that romance-centric bookstores are a more popular phenomenon in conservative states. In her mind, where marginalization is more oppressive, people seem to increasingly seek out spaces in which they can express themselves and their sexuality. “Opening a romance bookstore is probably one of the most political things I could have done with my life,” Paige laughed.
This may be especially true when book-banning and censorship in schools – especially within the young adult and queer romance genres – are tightening under the Trump administration. Lobbied for by conservative groups like Moms for Liberty who argue such LGBTQ-inclusive and racially diverse books count as pornography, the 2023-24 school year saw titles such as Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses newly banned in Texas schools. It’s not an accident, Paige thinks, that young people are increasingly restricted from diverse romance literature. “That’s the time frame when they learn empathy, and compassion, and to be interested in people who are different from you,” Paige said. “All of those things are part of romance.”
Having grown up Mormon in Utah, Paige said she’s always been fascinated by religion. After she left the church, the bookstore came to fill the need she still felt to live in communion, to build spaces where people can spend time together. “This is my church now,” Paige said, “and it serves really everything that I always thought the church was supposed to serve, which is community.”
“I think this is the best way I can love my neighbor. I find I’m happier when I’m here, in this space, even when there’s a lot of reasons not to be happy in the world right now.”
Book Wars: A Night of Romance Trivia & Chaotic Fun
Friday 1, Flutter Romance Bookstore
This article appears in August 1 • 2025.