We’re going to have to get used to it, whether we’re happy about it or saddened by it, romance, new Or dark, has invaded our fiction charts. No longer a single list of bestsellers without one of these works appearing, nor an annual list without their authors participating in the feasts organized by L’Express. The week from January 1 to 7 is symptomatic, which saw Morgane Moncomble emerge on the first step of the podium with volume II of Seasons (nearly 60,000 since January 2024), volume I published in September 2023 having already accumulated some 1.2 million copies. The 27-year-old Frenchwoman is one of the latest additions to the wave of female novelists who have rushed into this genre literature which gleans thousands of fans and increasingly drives out “the male writer over 50” of our rankings. Rebelote this week (from January 8 to 14), which, this time, gives pride of place to Sarah Rivens with volume I of Lakestonetherefore “replacing” her sister Moncomble in 3rd place – could her 159,000 followers on Instagram and 42,400 on X (ex-Twitter), not to mention the thousands of views on TikTok, have something to do with it?
We should still talk about Maud Ankaoua, whose novel, Breathe, published in 2020 sold 117,000 copies at Eyrolles and 340,000 in small format, at J’ai Lu. And also of Chloé Wallerand and her saga The Devil’s sounds published (a few million copies) by Plumes du web, and soon by HarperCollins Poche. Fans, they certainly are, the young romance readers, who we have seen, from the Paris Book Festival to the Livre sur la place de Nancy via the Brive Book Fair, waiting for hours to have their books signed. exemplary.
What do all these new stars on the shelves have in common? Being part of the fairer sex, having often started on the collaborative platform Wattpad, publishing predominantly English-sounding sagas like machine guns, being sufficiently supported by influencers to do without the press. And when, in addition, pocket publishers get involved, the counters panic: nearly 1.5 million copies at J’ai Lu pour Zero kilometer by Maud Ankaoua, and nearly 3 million from the series After from Anna Todd to the Pocket Book!
A craze that arouses desire
Anna Todd, Emma Green, Colleen Hoover, Christina Lauren (Bastard) and of course EL James (50 Shades of Gray)it is indeed they, the Anglo-Saxons, who launched this great movement which deals with very coded love stories (with their rhythm, their strong moments, their moments of emotion, their tropes) interspersed with sex scenes more or less less explicit notified by a system of signals, while the “trigger warnings” located at the beginning of the novel serve as a warning on the subjects covered (non-consensual sex, for example).
A craze (the French bought more than 6 million “romance” books in 2023) which arouses desire. Thus Editis launched, under the leadership of Julie Cartier and Sarah Rigaud, the house Chatterley, which publishes a dozen romances per year, with, for example, Okéanos S., alias Océadorable, “the BookTokeuse of eight million likes”, author of Games I. The Bogeyman. Many questions remain, including a first, compelling one: will their young groupies one day read more traditional literature? Or will they remain, like the Harlequin readers of yesterday, clinging to their romances? No one knows, but there is hope.