A Novel Love Story

Many of Ashley Poston’s novels, including A Novel Love Story, fall into the genre of contemporary romance and the subgenre of romantic comedy. Although A Novel Love Story deals with dark subjects such as grief and loss, it is underpinned by lighthearted and comedic moments that often shift the tone away from more serious subject matter. Contemporary romances are categorized by their happy endings and familiar plotlines but often focus on the main characters’ personal growth and the obstacles they must overcome to achieve their happy ending. As in A Novel Love Story, most contemporary romance heroines and heroes are flawed; these narratives often show them helping each other overcome barriers not only to becoming romantically involved but also to being better and happier people.

The romance genre has experienced a recent boom driven by the social media platform TikTok. BookTok, a subcommunity of TikTok, brought romance novels to the forefront for many readers, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. BookTok has largely affected sales and the positive reception of popularized books on the platform, where creators review and discuss books they’ve read. While not entirely dedicated to the romance genre, BookTok often trends toward content about romance novels. Common discussions in BookTok videos include reader reception and tropes.

Romance tropes, archetypes, and situations, such as enemies-to-lovers relationships, marriage-of-convenience plotlines, and small-town settings, often attract readers searching for the comfort of familiar plotlines. A Novel Love Story uses many conventions typical of contemporary romance novels, including the opposites-attract trope, in which two characters who would not normally cross paths are brought together by chance and fall in love. Forced proximity, or the “only-one-bed” trope, is another common plot device used in A Novel Love Story, as it forces characters like Elsy and Anders to be physically close despite their attempts to avoid becoming romantically involved. Poston also makes use of the conventions of paranormal or fantasy romance in the ways that the magical setting of Eloraton affects Elsy and Anders’s relationship. With the fictional setting, the novel’s heroes are kept apart by more than just their personal feelings but also a barrier symbolic of what they must learn before they can be with one another.