Every few months someone in an author group asks the same question: what should I write next?
There's no perfect answer. The book you're excited to write will almost always beat the book you think you should write. But knowing where readers' attention is heading helps you make smarter calls about what to write next, which tropes to lead with in your marketing, and when to release.
So we looked. Our own research tracks reader searches on Google across the US, UK, Canada, Australia and worldwide, comparing the last 12 months with the 12 before. We also take daily snapshots of Amazon's Kindle romance bestseller lists in each of those stores. Here's what the data says heading into 2027.
One thing before we start: search interest is a sign of reader curiosity, not sales. It tends to move before the charts do, which is why it's useful. Treat everything below as a lead to check against your own readers, not a promise.
Sports romance is the story of the year
If one thing stood out, it's sports. Searches for sports romance as a whole are up in every market we track:
- United States: +218%
- United Kingdom: +391%
- Canada: +263%
- Australia: +221%
- Worldwide: +278%
Hockey is still the backbone of it. Hockey romance searches are up 113% in the US, 161% in the UK and 141% in Canada, where hockey is bigger relative to romance overall than in any other market we track.
The newer development is football, especially in the UK, where football romance searches are up 527%. We dug into that one separately in Is Football the New Hockey?, because "football" means very different things depending on where your reader lives.
Romantasy has grown up
Romantasy is no longer a niche. In the US, romantasy searches are now about a quarter the size of searches for "romance books" itself, and they're still climbing (+66% in the US, +105% worldwide). It's rising in every market we track.
On the Amazon shelves, romantasy shows up more often in bestseller titles (2.0%) than in new-release titles (1.5%). In plain English: readers are buying it faster than authors are putting it out.
Dark romance is the biggest trope we track
By sheer volume, dark romance leads. In the US, dark romance searches are 43% the size of "romance books" searches. Worldwide, that jumps to 81%. And it's still rising: +52% in the US, +70% in the UK and +47% in Canada.
Like romantasy, it looks under-supplied on the Amazon charts. Dark romance appears in 3.2% of bestseller titles against 2.2% of new-release titles.
MM romance is rising everywhere
MM romance searches are up in every English-language market: +113% in the US, +159% in the UK, +113% in Canada and +104% in Australia. In the UK, "best MM romance books" searches are up 200%. In Australia, MM romance searches peak every December, so if you write MM and you have Australian readers, your holiday release window matters.
Academy, college and medical
A few smaller tropes are moving fast:
- Academy romance is up 179% in the US and 157% in the UK.
- College romance is up 204% in the UK.
- Medical romance is labelled "new and breaking out" in the US, up 436% on the year before. It's still mid-sized, but it's growing faster than almost anything else we track.
Quieter risers in the US include romantic suspense (+94%), second chance (+80%), sapphic romance (+81%) and clean and wholesome (+138%).
What's cooling off
Cooling doesn't mean dead. It means interest has dropped from a recent high. These are the US tropes with lower searches over the last three months than the same three months a year ago:
- Fake dating: -27%
- Omegaverse: -21%
- Fae: -19%
- Single dad: -33%
- Bully romance: -18%
- Rockstar: -17%
- Demon: -81%
Fake dating is still a sizeable trope, roughly 10% the size of "romance books" searches in the US. If it's your lane, you have an audience. You just might want to pair it with something that's climbing, like a sports or small-town setting, instead of leading with it alone.
Crowded shelves vs open space
This is the part we find most useful. When we compare how often a trope appears in bestseller titles against how often it appears in brand-new releases, we can see where readers are buying faster than authors are publishing, and where it's the other way round.
Under-supplied (readers buying faster than new books arrive):
- Enemies to lovers (4.0% of bestseller titles vs 2.7% of new releases)
- Dark romance
- Romantasy
- College and academy
- Single dad (interesting, given searches are cooling)
Crowded (lots of new releases chasing readers):
- Mafia (7.1% of bestseller titles vs 9.8% of new releases)
- Age gap
- Why choose / reverse harem
- Omegaverse
- Firefighter
- Viking
Crowded doesn't mean "don't write it". Mafia is still a big, rising trope. It means your cover, hook and blurb have to work harder, because readers have more choice.
Trends that aren't really trends
Some tropes looked like they were exploding, but when we checked, the rise wasn't coming from readers. Office and boss romance, for example, shows a huge one-month spike in June 2026 in the US, UK and Canada. That's the pattern a movie, show or news story causes, not a reading shift. Royal, military and cowboy searches in the US rose too, but book-related searches for those tropes actually fell.
This is why it's worth being careful with "trending" lists. A spike is not a trend.
Plan around the calendar
Some tropes have their own yearly peak, separate from the general December bump. Aim to publish about two months before the peak so the book has reviews and rank when searches spike. In the US:
- Hockey, romantasy and cowboy: peak in December, publish by October
- Single dad and firefighter: peak in January, publish by November
- Forbidden: peaks in February, publish by December
- Scottish and highlander: peaks in March, publish by January
- Alpha male and royal: peak in April, publish by February
If you're planning your 2027 releases now, our free Release Roadmap walks you through the 90, 60 and 30 days before launch.
How to actually use this
Please don't rewrite your series because a trope is up 200%. Here's how we'd use trend data instead:
- Look for overlap. Which of the rising tropes already exist in your books? A small-town romance with a hockey player in it is a hockey romance too, if you market it that way.
- Lead with the strongest trope in your marketing. Your hooks, ad copy and first slide should name the trope readers are actively searching for.
- Check your categories and keywords. If your book genuinely fits a growing trope, make sure your Amazon categories and keywords say so.
- Time your release. If your next book fits a trope with a seasonal peak, plan backwards from that peak.
- Watch the crowded tropes. If you write mafia or age gap, invest in the things that help you stand out: cover, blurb and hooks.
Want help turning this into a plan?
Trend data is only useful if it changes what you do on Monday. If you'd like help working out which tropes to lead with, and building hooks and a release plan around them, take a look at our marketing strategy and hook writing services, or get in touch and tell us what you're working on.