About a year ago, I was chatting with a friend of mine—Natalia Herndnadez in fact, check out her books The Namebearer, Follower of Flowers, Daughter of Danray and Asiri and the Amaru—and we were talking about some of our favorite books. We both read a lot of fantasy and sci-fi and we both really enjoy dystopian stories, especially. But Natalia also reads quite a bit of romance, whereas I only pick up one or two titles a year, despite enjoying the genre. Naturally, she asked me why that is, and I said something about focusing on fantasy and sci-fi because I really like the conversations I can have from those books. And Natalia said something to me that has really sat with me ever since.

She said, in summary (because this was months ago), that one of the things she loves about the romance genre is that it is an opportunity for women to reimagine what intimacy and romance can look like in a world where they are safe.

That sat with me. Because, I was looking at romance as something completely different from the books I typically read, when in reality, it is doing the exact same thing, just with a different focus. I like fantasy and sci-fi because it is often discussing systemic structures and systems that haunt our real world, and they provide opportunities to have really big conversations about the harm happening around us, and about what change could possibly look like.

I had never really considered that Romance is having the exact same conversations.

I read a book recently called Spin the Bottle by Stephanie Alvez. It was a romance, as the title suggests, and it is a classic friends-with-benefit story that follows two characters named Leila and Aiden. Leila is a fat woman of color who has spent her entire life being told she would be beautiful if she just lost weight. Not only by the guys who are comfortable using her, but never loving her, but also by her own mother, who is largely responsible for her inability to see herself as valuable. And Aiden is a hot jock who is holding onto secrets that keep him from ever truly offering his entire self to anyone. He is from a dirt-poor family, his mother is addicted to drugs and he spends every waking moment working so that he can afford school, and afford to take care of himself and meet whatever demands his family makes of him.

There is nothing about that story that is any less radical than the fantasy and sci-fi I read on a daily basis. It’s focus was different, but the conversations were just as impactful. Instead of a wide-scale conversation about fatphobia, racism, addiction or poverty, it plucked a single couple out of the larger narrative and gave us a real example of those systems at play.

And that is radical.

Now, I don’t want to tell you that you have to search for radical conversations in every book you pick up. You don’t. It’s perfectly fine to just read a book and enjoy the story. I am not going to dictate how you read or what you get out of it. But for me, thinking about the world I live in is a crucial part of my reading experience. That is something I am looking for as I dive into a new book. And I think it is important for those of us who read in that way to understand that romance is every bit as radical as other genres.

Especially when it is written by Black and brown women.

I want to read romance about people in the hood, about fat people, Black people, Indigenous people, other people of color, queer people, disabled people, abused people, young people, old people, neurodivergent people, poor people, oppressed people… because even if their focus isn’t necessarily to discuss the larger systems of oppression that hold our world together, they still force us to wrestle with how those systems impact us in the most intimate area of our lives. And I want to read about it.

In fact, I eventually want to publish it. As you know, one of the things that this community exists for is to publish books by Black and brown people. I have a lot of vision for what this imprint will look like, and one of the things I am focused on is creating space for Black and brown people across genres. Including romance. I am very interested in finding that book that takes me somewhere I haven’t been taken before in this genre. Especially if it’s set in the projects. Y’all don’t even know how I would eat up a quality Black love story set in the hood. I want to see Black love thriving in the way I saw it growing up.

I remember watching my older sister juggling the weight of having to fight for survival while also working to give her family her everything at all times. I remember her working long hours at jobs she hated and coming home, only to pull out the bikes and ride around the city with us kids. I remember her playing with us, wrestling with us, beating us up and rough-housing long into the night. And I remember her running across the room to jump onto her husbands back to help us take him down when we were losing a war we had foolishly started, or roast battles while we watched WWE as a family. But before all of that, she was a young Black woman falling in love in a neighborhood that other people don’t think deserve it. And I don’t know… I just think that’s a story I want to see on the page.

For so many of you looking in on the projects from the outside, all you see are gangs and violence and poverty and drugs…but your perception isn’t real. And I would LOVE to put out a romance that showed you that picture I pull up when I remember watching the Black women around me fall in love.

Anyway, keep your eyes out for those stories, because I want them! But in the NOW, what books do I HAVE to add to my 2025 TBR. List them in the comments. Because I am going to make Black romance a staple of my bookshelf this year!!! I want to read a wide variety, but I want to start with reading up all the Black romance. So give me all the recs!

Extra points if they’re indie.

Here are a few books that are already on my radar:

• Asia Monique’s Mafia Misfit Series
• Kennedy Ryan’s Skyland Series
• Nikki Payne’s Sex, Lies and Sensibilities

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