Why BookTok Is Absolutely Obsessed With Dark Romance

When Brynne Weaver first released her novel Butcher & Blackbird, she was on a fact finding mission in the self-publishing world. The author had started with fantasy, then moved into paranormal, and then contemporary dark romance — all with the express purpose of laying the groundwork for her eventual big hit. “It was just this process of continuously wanting to learn how to crack it and how to get better and better, and focusing on the next thing in the future,” Weaver tells Rolling Stone.” Then she started noticing people tagging her on TikTok. There were a few, then a handful, then thousands. When foreign publishers began clogging up her email, asking who to contact to purchase the rights less than a week later, Weaver didn’t even have an agent. Now, with over 1 million copies sold, she’s one of the biggest names in the dark romance genre, has a new book, Scythe & Sparrow, on Feb. 11, and is active proof of how TikTok’s book community has turned a niche newcomer genre into a massive hit. 

“Dark romance is an exploration of trauma, darker themes, adult content, morally gray behaviors,” Weaver says. ‘Those kinds of darker elements to life, but with the romantic setting, so there’s always a happy ending at the end. It’s dealing in those darker concepts of past trauma, the concerns about feeling like you’re unlovable or alone in the world. And I think that’s why it’s becoming more popular. It’s almost like therapy.” 

BookTok, the longstanding community on TikTok devoted to discussing everything from literature to paperback erotica, knows how to match every kind of book with every kind of reader. It’s an online forum that’s managed to have massive impacts on everything from publishing trends to a resurgence of physical bookstores — but its beginnings as a grassroots community means that many of the books championed by large creators are from genres previously diminished or straight up ignored by traditional publishing. This is the world that dark romance is finally making its name in. Weaver’s first book Butcher & Blackbird detailed the story of Sloane and Rowan, a couple who find themselves caught in a chance meeting turned freaky love story. Some people are assassins. These two are straight up serial killers — and spend the next few years competing in an annual “hunting trip” that brings them closer to a whole lot of blood, and of course, their feelings for each other. What’s calming for one person might be a nightmare for others, which is why dark romance as it’s currently understood has often been a genre found easiest through authors who self publish. But BookTok’s discoverability means that even smaller novels — released without publishers and purely through an author’s own marketing — can become the next big read. 

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“I have to credit BookTok a lot, because it provided that forum for people to start sharing what they were interested in,” Weaver tells Rolling Stone. “Even though dark romance is relatively newish, people have that platform to be able to share it with each other and build a community out of that. And self publishing has definitely allowed authors to circumvent the gate keeping that was not allowing dark romance so much in the traditional publishing sphere.” 

Butcher & Blackbird was the first of Weaver’ Ruinous Love Trilogy, which will conclude with the Feb. 11 release of Scythe & Sparrow. (“It takes a long time between the point at which you’re finished the book until it actually comes out, so it’s exciting to finally get to the last few days.”) But while the series has already exceeded Weaver’s wildest expectations — including making the New York Times bestseller list, and being tapped for a movie adaption with Chris McKay (The Lego Batman Movie, The Lego Movie) set to direct — the dark romance genre still has to contend with major stigma, something Weaver says is rarely attached to non-romance horror works. 

“Culturally, we’re attracted to things like true crime or thrillers or horror for a reason, because we still want to experience the sort of dark excitement of it, but not have to live it,” she says. “I think that [stigma] still exists because romance as a whole is written and consumed by women. And dark romance is an even bigger leap. It kinda blows people’s minds a little bit.” 

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While that stigma can sometimes mean dark romance books are maligned in non-BookTok spaces, Weaver doesn’t seem that bothered about it. Instead, she invites people to look into the dark romance genre more before they write it off all together. “You don’t have to go straight into the heavy topics, like the murder and chaos. There are a lot of different entry points,” She says. “There’s like, a whole realm out there to try. So I just encourage people to give it a shot before they really say, “Oh, I don’t think this is for me.” 

And while people who are interested might be diving into their first dark romance reads, Weaver says she’ll be continuing to write about the darker sides of life — serial killers and all — even if it means it’s probably a wrap for her Google Search history. 

“I have a master’s degree in forensic archeology, so I do have some stuff, kind of like, stored away in my brain. But there are, nonetheless, times that you have to look up stuff about disposing of bodies,” she laughs. “I have Googled so much crazy shit, I’m sure I’m on many lists.”