Perfect Match: Falling for Vancouver's First Romance Themed Bookstore
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perfect match bookstore.
I paced outside, my feet keeping in time with the fast paced rhythm of my heavily beating heart. I was sweating. From nerves or from the intensity of the sun’s kiss, I couldn’t tell. I knew that everything I was looking for patiently waited on the other side of the door. Blind dates were always nerve-racking, but this one felt different. I could feel it in my toes, in the soft blush creeping across my newly flushed cheeks.
Inside, the air shifted. The light was soft and welcoming, the walls a dusty rose. I let out a long breathe and stepped over the threshold. On the north wall I spotted what I had been searching for. I picked up Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab. This was my blind date, suggested by a good friend, long-awaited and finally in my hands. The weight of the pages felt good, solid in my hands, a perfect fit. A perfect match some might say.
Romance, as a genre, has been impossible to ignore lately. From The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han to A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas, love stories are on the rise, reaching across age groups and tastes. I, myself, have fallen victim to the rise of romance and yearning, indulging in a classic trope appreciation occasionally.
Amy Pelletier, owner of Vancouver’s first romance-themed bookstore, Perfect Match Bookshop, saw that hunger and opened a space specifically tailored to it. On opening weekend (August 16 2025), more than seven hundred people streamed through the newly painted doors, a true testament to how much this city desired such a space. Even though the bookstore is small, it put up a great front for such a large group of people. When I arrived the other day, Amy was restocking the shelves that had practically been emptied from such a successful opening launch.
Driven by a goal to create a welcoming, inclusive space and foster community within the romance and romance-adjacent world, Amy has already shown how successful genre-focused bookstores can be, and that even in a world of endless doom scrolling and fleeting online connection, readers still yearn for the lasting intimacy of a book.
The store opened only earlier this month, and already I feel myself falling in love with Vancouver again. It has been a tenuous love affair at times, but this space has sparked my faith in romance once more. The sky seems bluer, my chest feels lighter. I have a skip in my step as I walk down through the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood. Perfect Match is nestled on East Broadway, just across from The Lido bar and just down from Kim’s Mart. What more could a girl like me want in a one block radius?
“From accidentally reading bodice rippers when I was 12 to opening a romance bookstore in Vancouver, I’ve always loved stories.”
Though the shop is small and intimate, its shelves are brimming with variety: specifically one of the more expansive Young Adult collections I have seen, spanning queer YA to fantasy YA, dark romance, and contemporary love stories. There is even a used books shelf, where customers can consign their own titles for store credit, a touch that feels practical and affectionate, the comfort of a well loved book making the space feel that much more special.
“I was inspired to open the store because the romance readers in Vancouver have been missing out on all the amazing community building that can happen in spaces like this. The goal was to create a store filled with stories of joy and love, as well as build community through events, book clubs, author signings, and more.”
Beyond books, the store offers whimsical extras in the form of stickers (sometimes some very saucy ones), hats, puzzles, face masks and more—all items that keep the focus on joy and that you could use on the perfect cozy evening curled up with your newest book obsession. But what Perfect Match offers most is an important reminder that yearning, joy, and love are worth making space for in our everyday lives. Pelletier has given Vancouver a bookstore that does not just stock romance, but embodies it in all forms. A little romanticization never hurt anybody, and I for one am excited to indulge in supporting my local bookshops.
Perfect Match Bookshop is located at 545 East Broadway. Check out their website and instagram for more information on their book consignment program, author signings and their monthly Romance Book Club. The next meet up for their book club is September 4 with the book A Gentleman’s Gentleman by T.J. Alexander being the topic of discussion.
Ciara Gordon is a writer of queer horror short fiction, based in Vancouver, BC. Her work weaves the preternatural with the eerie, exploring our fascination with fear. Her work has appeared in SAD Mag, orangepeel literary magazine, and the SFU emerge 24 anthology, with her fiction shortlisted for PULP Literature’s Hummingbird Prize. She was the founder and editor of Salt & Citrus, a poetry-inspired online zine that ran from 2021-2024, and now heads Chthonic Lit, a biannual print publication dedicated to speculative fiction. Chthonic Lit explores queer horror, fantasy, science fiction, and genre-breaking works that unearth the uncanny and harrowing depths buried beneath the surface.
Ciara is one of the current web editors for SAD Mag.
