Best of Philly Spotlight: In a Reading Slump? Cupid’s Bookshop Owner Tina Long Recommends Trying an Alien Romance Novel
At her Manayunk store, you’ll also find a cardboard cutout of Fabio.
Photograph by Linette Messina
You may have heard that romance is dead. It was likely while you were socializing with single people, eavesdropping on married couples, or watching any reality show with the word real in the title.
Allow Cupid’s Bookshop owner Tina Long to change your mind — or at least offer a few book recommendations.
“Alien romance novels are easy reads,” says Long, who opened the store, which exclusively sells romance novels, in Manayunk this past spring. “I always suggest this genre if someone is in a reading slump or looking for something different. The paranormal romance genre is a big category for us. Sometimes you need to get out of reality and go to outer space with a sensitive alien.”
You could also just snap a picture with the store’s life-size cardboard cutout of Fabio. Six days a week, customers drift in and pose with the flaxen-haired model who personified the genre in the ’90s, then thumb through one (or more) of the roughly 1,000 titles that line the shelves of the cozy space. Some shoppers settle into one of the plush pink armchairs and read for a while. Others peruse the cute merch (think stickers, hats, and bookmarks) Long has displayed around the store. No matter what they’re doing, everyone is eager to share book recommendations.
TikTok’s wildly popular #BookTok community helped reignite interest in reading in general and the romance category in particular during the pandemic. According to the New York Times, print sales of romance novels have more than doubled in the past few years, and indie shops that cater to the genre continue to pop up at a surprisingly steady clip all over the U.S.
Like that of many other millennials, Long’s interest in romance novels began with the Twilight book series (there’s also a cardboard cutout of Robert Pattinson in the store) and Fifty Shades of Grey. She dreamed of opening a bookstore after she left her full-time career in fashion publishing in New York City. But Long decided to reconsider her timeline when she hit her 40s. Philadelphia, a place she’d always enjoyed visiting with her husband, felt like the ideal place to start a new chapter. The timing was also right to open a brick-and-mortar entirely devoted to romance novels, the first of its kind in Philly.
“Cupid’s Bookshop is somewhere to go and feel a sense of community,” says Long, adding that book club gatherings regularly run over two hours and author events draw huge crowds. “You don’t have to feel ashamed about liking romance novels, which has been my experience at traditional bookstores.”
Long is committed to scouting for the shop’s future bestsellers, which right now center on steamy stories about cowboys, hockey players, and, of course, those empathetic extraterrestrials; dark romance (which she describes as stories with “more trigger warnings”) is also popular. BIPOC and queer titles are a big focus and take up an entire bookcase in the shop. Long usually reads two or three books a week (her currents: Alice Chen’s Reality Check, by Kara Loo and Jennifer Young, and Can’t Get Enough, by Kennedy Ryan) and has a trusted circle of friends and customers who share their faves.
Speaking of favorites, you may be wondering about Long’s — and they aren’t what you’d expect. “I still love Pride and Prejudice and Romeo and Juliet,” she says. “They aren’t romance, but they are love-adjacent.”
106 Grape Street, Front A, Manayunk.
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Published as “Picture This: Book Lover” in the August 2025 issue of Philadelphia magazine.
