Romance fiction has outgrown the fairytale. Have its writers?

In an age where red flags are spotted even before you swipe right, how do romance novels make meet-cutes believable? Or have they become an escape for those who still hope to find ‘the one’ when situationships are abound?

Just when I thought romance, that warm, fuzzy feeling which brings a dewy smile to your eyes was an obsolete emotion, a manuscript popped up in my inbox. There were unspoken words, silences evoking loss, a yearning to have held hands, letters written every day as a means to record, meetings that changed them both, and how they look at life. There were sensuous descriptions of a city, against whose backdrop the love story plays out. 

Even if the manuscript sounds old-fashioned, it deserves to be applauded. Just for its basic deconstruction of emotions that are human. The self was exposed–raw, naked, and instinctive. 

I am unashamed to admit that I find romance in every little observation. When I look at rain-drenched leaves glistening with trembling silvery rain drops. When two people walk on a dark path and their hands reach out to each other at the same moment. 

We have grown up reading Barbara Cartlands, Georgette Heyer, and Mills & Boons.  Hiding them from frowning elder sisters and a strict mom—that thrill only added to the already swirling, swooning feelings that rippled through the heart. What we didn’t hide were the Emily Brontës and Jane Austens.

Even today, in tucked-away rooms filled with notebooks, laptops, half-told stories, and endless cups of coffee, writers gather to write about love. Sometimes, it’s at a writer’s retreat in Jaipur, in the quiet elegance of a heritage space, where conversations meander from longing to interfaith tenderness, queer ache, heartbreaks that make you laugh, and endings that choose selfhood over settling. In those reflective corners and shared pages, it becomes clear that writing romance is far from outdated. If anything, it demands more now—not just passion, but precision. Not tropes, but truth. 

A shift in narrative

Through the past few years and into 2025, romance novels in India have seen a shift in narrative, mostly owing to authors starting to blend traditional romantic ideas with perspectives that increasingly cater to the tastes of a modern reader. This isn’t any one book, but just how romance is being viewed and hence portrayed in the present day. There is an increased focus on the ‘Swipe Right’ construct of romance—the various dating labels and the search for 'the one' on dating apps. Along with it comes the disappointment when expectations aren't met, the genres of self-discovery, a nuanced approach towards mental health and how it affects the modern dating patterns of those struggling with their inner demons while grappling with emotions. I am not being critical, but I am cynically casting a raised eyebrow at it.

Interestingly, while the stories still circle back to finding ‘the one,’ they now demand more emotional literacy, more healing, and a greater understanding of oneself before love can fully arrive. The idea of love hasn’t disappeared; it has simply become more layered, more expansive in its definitions. Fiction now captures love between parents and children (Avni Doshi’s Girl in White Cotton encapsulates the complicated, bruised love between a mother and daughter), and female friendships (Mahashweta by Sudha Murty). The landscape is growing richer and more diverse.

There’s niche readership too, in people reading stories that mirror LGBTQIA+ love (Cobalt Blue by Sachin Kundalkar, translated by Jerry Pinto, The Carpet Weaver by Sadat Nemat) and interfaith or intercaste relationships (The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy). These novels move beyond romantic tropes to engage with serious conversations around identity, social norms, and personal freedom, revealing how love stories can be both tender and politically resonant. They challenge conventions while still holding space for love, proving that romance need not come at the cost of depth.

Romance Isn’t a Genre AI Can Code 

Romance needs a human touch, it demands softness, unpredictability, and emotion. While Artificial Intelligence (AI) can try, it can only create stories based on available data and the logic imparted to it. Love, by its very nature, does not run on logic. That’s why romance novels, too, cannot be created by logic. 

Romance calls for lived experiences. AI by itself can never imagine why someone would wait years for a love letter that might never arrive. It will never understand why a person holds on to an old scarf because it smells like their beloved. AI will always romanticise love through the data points provided to it. But without an understanding of longing, chaos or sacrifice, how can it translate those feelings into the writing? And that is its limitation.  

Which is why I always return to It Does Not Die by Maitreyi Devi. It is not just a response to Mircea Eliade’s Bengal Nights; it is a reclamation. A conversation between two books, where one romanticises and the other remembers. Where one imagines, the other corrects—with dignity, not anger.

Decades after their brief time together, Maitreyi discovered that Eliade had turned their past into fiction, without her knowledge. She did not retaliate. She reflected. She wrote not to undo his story, but to tell her own. Devi does not seek revenge—she writes to restore. She does not argue, she asserts. Her novel is a quiet revolution, wrapped in memory and restraint. This is something AI cannot possibly do.

Romantic art is not just about love. It is about silence, waiting, forgiveness. Austen wrote happy endings but lived differently, choosing solitude for the sake of her craft. Maitreyi gave Eliade his version, then wrote her own decades later—not to erase his, but to reclaim herself.

The question isn’t just about whether AI can feel. It is whether it can carry the weight of memory and choose compassion over correction. That kind of love, the kind that answers with grace, still belongs only to us.

The love modern romances address

If I cast my glance as a literary agent, romance as a genre has become exceedingly vast and varied. The mass market of paperbacks and the surge in self-publishing, along with platforms like Substack and Wattpad,and even perhaps Instagram or podcasts, have widened the playing field. The aspirational happy ending—a form of personal, sexual fulfilment—allows for a restorative reading experience. We are, after all, suckers for emotional succour.  

A frequent theme, however, is that of finding love in unexpected places—be it in a best friend that suddenly starts giving butterflies, or a frenemy the main character feels unexpectedly drawn towards. Second-chance romances, love after loss and how it helps in mourning and letting go of the past are threads found in abundance too. The spectrum ranges from sappy, steamy, slow burn romances to a scientific project-based search for a life partner in Graeme Simsion’s The Rosie Project.

Readers across age groups, genders, and cultural backgrounds seek out romances simply because of the allure of characters that resonate and situations that provide hope that true love isn’t far away. The idea of modern romances offers a peaceful and hopeful acceptance by, if not everyone, just 'the one,' no matter how flawed you are. That today’s readers lean towards unconventional love stories or romances featuring older characters has also helped.

Growing up with broody gentlemen like Mr. Darcy, the modern reader now has a taste of contemporary fictional men and women who navigate life through a fresh lens, ones who believe in taking the leap ‘once again,’ or discovering the beauty of giving their heart to someone for the first time, or the struggle of ‘letting someone in’. 

The revival of Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy through the Netflix adaptation in 2020 has drawn a new audience to traditional romances. Meanwhile, the modern style of writing romances in 2025 relies on character-driven narratives that diverge from traditional tropes like 'love at first sight' and hinge more on themes such as 'found family' (The Singles Table by Sara Desai, Dating Dr. Dil by Nisha Sharma), 'love after loss' (Fool Me Twice by Nona Uppal), or even 'age gap' (The Queen of Hearts by Kimmery Martin) and 'second-chance romances' (A Second Chance by Sudeep Nagarkar, Always Been You by A. Rivers).

Whether it’s a cupcake romance or an offbeat one, relatability, unforgettability, and a certain aspirational quality is what we, as readers, search for.

Mita Kapur is the founder and CEO of literary consultancy Siyahi.

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