Romance Road Trip: Tropes & Trifles in Minneapolis, MN

By Sara Shahein

Edited by Emily Quintanilla

We headed to Minneapolis to visit the next romance bookstore on our road trip and to stock up on books of all tropes and subgenres at Tropes & Trifles. While you won’t find truffles here, you will find owners Caitlin O’Neil and Lauren Richards’ dedication to serving their community and tons of knowledge about starting your own genre-specific bookstore. While Lauren was recommending books to readers in the store, Caitlin chatted with me!

The Meet Cute

Sara: Hi, Caitlin! Thank you so much for joining me today. I’m sad Lauren couldn’t be on the call, but Readin’ is happy to hear all about your bookstore, Tropes and Trifles. 

Caitlin: Thank you for having me. Lauren is at the store today. One of the joys of co-ownership is split responsibilities, so while she takes care of that, I can chat with you. 

Sara: We love co-ownership! Could you tell me a bit about Tropes & Trifles? How long have you been open, and how did the store come to be? 

Caitlin: Tropes & Trifles officially opened in the iteration that it is now in April 2024. About six months prior, we started doing pop-ups that just got larger. We ended up in a temporary holiday storefront and then, in April 2024, officially opened. We had been planning to have a storefront since November 2023.

Sara: Wow! That’s impressive! 

Caitlin: It was nearly 18 months from the first conversation Lauren and I had to the actual grand opening, and it’s completely surpassed all of our expectations. 

Sara: How long have you and Lauren known each other?

Caitlin: We met in 2019 at a romance book club held at another local bookstore here in the Twin Cities. We knew each other as romance readers before we knew each other as friends. 

Sara: I love that! That leads to my next question: Why romance? 

Caitlin: Lauren and I are longtime romance readers. As kids, we gravitated towards books with romance plots in them. I was all about books like The Princess Diaries; I loved anything with a romance plot. As I was prepping for this interview, I pulled out the very first mass market adult romance I bought myself in 2003. 

Sara: I love that you still have it! What’s the book? 

Caitlin: It’s Some Girls Do by Leanne Banks. We’re going on about 25 years of being adult romance readers. 

Sara: That's amazing! 

Caitlin: When this other bookstore in the Twin Cities started a romance book club, Lauren and I showed up. They met about three times before it got shut down in March 2020, but we kept it going as a virtual book club, and we’re still in it. We meet monthly with other people to talk about romance. That’s how we met, through romance. 

Sara: That is really sweet. It’s wonderful how you have been able to build this friendship and start a business out of your mutual love for romance. I love to hear everyone’s origin stories with romance. 

Caitlin: Prior to this, Lauren had worked in political consulting for over 20 years, and I was a book publicist, so we both kind of made a switch. But being able to work with romance specifically, since that’s what we predominantly read, recommend, and talk about, was very important to us when creating this space. We wanted to be able to create a space to talk about the things we love that we know other people love, too. 

Sara: There is definitely a large romance reader community, and it’s always growing, which is beautiful to see. It’s great how much it can connect people. 

Caitlin: The romance reader community is a really special community. 

Sara: Do you all have a large romance community in the Twin Cities? 

Caitlin: Yes, we have a really wonderful community in the Twin Cities and beyond. We have people from Greater Minnesota, Iowa, the Dakotas, and Wisconsin. I would say one of my favorite things about Tropes & Trifles is how a completely normal day in the store can feel like a reunion. We’ll get people from the neighborhood who come by while on a walk. We are part of people’s lives at this point. It’s nice to see people make friends at our events, and we have a large core group of regulars who come to a lot of events, so we like to catch up with them, hear about what they have been up to, what they are reading, or what Lego set they’ve been building. It feels like a party. 

Sara: I love that it has become sort of this third space where folks can come back to and catch up. I think bookstores are great for that because even if you’re a shy person, there are so many opportunities for you to engage with people who love the same thing you do. I am glad romance bookstores, and bookstores in general, have been able to provide spaces for these communities to grow and for people to find each other. 

Caitlin: We are really lucky in the Twin Cities to have a thriving indie bookstore scene. I think we have over 30 indie bookstores between Minneapolis and St. Paul. Learning that your regular is also a regular at another store is so fun. For example, we co-hosted an event with Comma, a Bookshop, and there were people walking in that I knew from Tropes & Trifles who also knew the owner of Comma. Again, it just adds to the reunion atmosphere, and it’s a really fun and friendly space to be. 

Sara: We have a very similar atmosphere here in Chicago. There are tons of indie bookstores, and it’s always nice to do a tour of them when people come into town.

Caitlin: We have people who do indie bookstore tours here as well. It’s not uncommon for people to bring a party bus through. We’ve had multiple people celebrate birthdays that way. We had someone do a bookstore and donut crawl. Not sure how many donut shops I could hit though. 

Sara: That sounds like my kind of party. 

Caitlin: It was a really fun day.

The Climax

Sara: I have to ask you, how did you all come up with the name Tropes & Trifles?

Caitlin: Well, it's an alliteration, so that's great. But at the heart of it, we sell tropes and romance books, but we also sell trifles: anything that's not a book in our store. It's also a nod to how romance can occasionally be thought of as an unserious matter or a trifle, by some. So that’s our secret meaning behind it.

Sara: I love the alliteration of it— it is so fun. I am a very visual person, so I love your logo and the double Ts. 

Caitlin: I will say some people do get confused. They think we sell truffles, and we don't.

Sara: Oh, yeah. Like, you guys don't have desserts here? How rude. 

Caitlin: We have a list going right now of people who have gotten our name wrong, and my favorite was “Truffles & Tripes.” 

Sara: Oh my god! That’s really changing it up there. 

Caitlin: That's a different store.

Sara: I actually think I might use that for a bookstore name. 

Caitlin: Oh, yeah. The truffles can be sweet romance, and the intestines can be your dark romance.

Sara: Exactly! They are such juxtaposing things. But speaking of romance subgenres, how is the store organized, and how do you choose what to purchase for the store? 

Caitlin: The majority of the store is categorized by subgenre, so we have contemporary, historical, erotica, dark, paranormal, romantasy, and young adult. Then we have a small, not-quite-romance section, which is some literary fiction that has romance subplots, or maybe it does not end with a happily ever after. We have a nonfiction section, which we stock with writing guides, pop culture, books on gender and sexuality studies, and history. We have a wall of new releases and staff picks. Then our Minnesota Connections section. This is just what it sounds like: a lot of local authors, authors who grew up here, or who set their books here. Any book where you can find Minnesota in the pages. 

Sara: And what is one thing I have to check out when visiting Tropes & Trifles?

Caitlin: Definitely the Minnesota Connections section. We have so many authors there that we love to recommend: Abby Jimenez, Ellie Palmer, Márie Roche—whose newest book Bromantasy has been very hard to keep in stock—Tasha Hart, Anne Shade, Sloane St. James, Dean Robert Holmes, a good mix of both traditionally published and indie published titles. It’s a very fun section. 

Sara: I feel like there is no better way to know a place than to read a book written by someone who grew up there or had personal experiences there. Besides, going to that place, of course. You mentioned stocking both indie and traditionally published books. How do you decide what to purchase for the store? 

Caitlin: Lauren is our book buyer, and there are a few different avenues that she uses for book purchasing. If a book is coming from a traditional publisher, then she gets sent catalogs, meets with reps, and we go to trade shows where we meet our reps and authors. For indie pub titles, she relies heavily on word of mouth and social media, but we also have a form on our site for people to be able to submit all the information we need about a title to consider stocking it. That's just up at the top of our header on our website, for people to be able to submit their recommendations. 

Sara: I like that it's open to anyone who wants to recommend a title or an author recommending their own title. There are so many things getting published, whether indie or traditional, and it's hard to keep track. I work at a library, and we have a similar title request form, so when a patron fills it out, it’s very helpful when it comes to purchasing titles. 

Catilin: Another really powerful tool for us to know about a book and consider it for stock is if people are preordering it or if they're coming in and requesting it. That'll often put it on our radar, too. It helps us gauge the community’s interest. 

Sara: We talked a bit about the community that you all have in the Twin Cities and the folks that are coming into the store. Building that community is definitely one way I have seen romance stores combat a lot of the shady talk we might hear about romance being all smut or fluff. What are some other ways that Tropes & Trifles show up for its community?

Caitlin: We don't need to pretend reading romance is not fun, but we also take it seriously. We treat readers in our community with respect and sensitivity. So if people are coming in and asking for a recommendation or content warnings, we are mindful. A lot of what people are reading might be personal to them, so creating a space that takes the reader seriously is important. If they're looking for a specific representation or want to avoid reading about specific topics, we approach all conversations delicately and with respect. 

Not only is romance not being taken seriously, but a lot of the identities that people are writing about in romance are being targeted in the real world. And we don't pretend that the real world isn't happening. We try to be vocal about book bans, protecting trans voices, and things happening in our own community. Earlier this year, you may have heard about the ICE occupation. A lot of what we did in that was, besides collecting supplies and running fundraisers, amplifying news on social media platforms and in our newsletter, so that people who weren't living directly in the Twin Cities knew what was happening here and could reference verifiable news sources. 

Sara: I think that’s a great way to show up for the community. Providing people with the necessary information to understand what is going on in our world is so important. Bookstores are a hub of information and resources, and yes, they are here to celebrate the happy moments, but they are also here to help educate folks on what is happening in the world. And that has a ripple effect on impacting what people are choosing to read and new authors they can support. 

Caitlin: I think romance often gets described as escapism, and that's fine. But escapism isn't all we should be doing.

Sara: Some of the best romances I've read talk about very important events or confront scary feelings. And a lot of people say this and can’t stress enough that because romance ends in a happily ever after, it serves as a perfect ground for authors to discuss these important ideas. Personally, I love to see grief written in romance books because it's such an interesting emotion to feel, and then to know that you can have love and happiness, and still be grieving at the same time is a very interesting concept to me.

Caitlin: Yeah, you're never cured from grief, but you learn to hold it in both hands. 

Sara: Exactly! 

Caitlin: We're pretty upfront about the fact that we think reading romance is political.

Sara: Totally! Reading in general is definitely political. 

The Epilogue 

Sara: Shifting gears slightly to a little bit more rapid fire. What are a few of your favorite tropes and why are they your favorites? 

Cailtin: I get a lot of grief for this in the store, but I love friends to lovers. My hot take is that the friends to lovers trope is higher stakes than enemies to lovers because you could ruin the friendship as opposed to, if something goes south with an enemy, oh well, they're still an enemy. If something goes south during a friendship, then you're out two relationships in one. But I will also say that I firmly believe that there are no bad tropes, only bad executions. For example, I tend not to gravitate towards surprise baby and amnesia tropes. I have read good surprise baby romances, and I've read good amnesia romances. 

Sara: The amnesia tropes I'm not into.

Cailtin: On the other hand, I've read bad enemies to lovers romances. So, you know, it's all in the execution.

Sara: Exactly. In a similar vein, what is your favorite subgenre and why?

Cailtin: Oh gosh, I don't know. How am I supposed to choose? That's like asking me to choose my favorite pet. Personally, I tend to gravitate toward contemporary romances. I don't know what it is about them; I am just quicker to pick one up. I also really love young adult romances. I think there’s something about the craft; you don’t have steamy moments to fall back on when you’re writing a young adult romance. It’s also about the tension; you have these two characters navigating new feelings and learning how to be people in the world. So I really love young adult romances. 

Sara: I’ve recently fallen back in love with young adult romances!

Cailtin: I will say if Lauren were on this call, she would say that paranormals are where it's at. She has been reading a lot of vampire romances. She is a huge Kresley Cole fan. She's read all of The Immortals After Dark series, and then she's obsessed with the new one coming out next month, Ravenous. If she were here, she would be talking about that book. She runs our Bonkers Book Club. They read a lot of historicals and a lot of paranormals where the plot just goes off the rails. And a lot of yearning and down bad men.

Sara: We love a down bad man. I also love that it's called the Bonkers Book Club. That is really good. Do you all host other book clubs? 

Cailtin: Yeah, we have five book clubs now. We have a But Do They Kiss? book club, which is a lot of not-quite-romance. We have our Queer book club. We have Bonkers Book Club, which is run like a field day. There's a revolving set of activities, including a craft and a game and an actual discussion about the book. Then we have a BIPOC book club. Finally, a Cozy and Crafting book club where people bring their crafts from home, or we have coloring sheets provided, and we have cozy books.

Sara: I love that. I typically enjoy a book club with an activity because it gets people talking about things outside of the book. 

Can you tell me some advice that you would give to someone who is interested in opening up a genre-specific bookstore?

Cailtin: We get this question a lot, and our first piece of advice is always to talk to the general interest bookstores in your area. The longer they've been around, the better. They've seen the ups and downs of the market. If they're willing to talk and share information, that's an amazing resource because they know the specific market that you are in. Larger than that, we always say, join your regional trade association. For us, that’s the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association. They do a lot of programming and offer mentorship opportunities, and it can be a more accessible way to get into conferences because they'll be held regionally Beyond that, we're also always in favor of joining the national association, the American Booksellers Association, because they have so many resources, including financial planning resources for people who are just starting out and trying to get legs under them and figure out the finances and the logistics of actually opening.

Sara: Those are some really great resources! Through these interviews, I’ve learned just how welcoming the bookstore community is, and it’s wonderful to see. 

My last question is, of course: What are you reading right now?

Caitlin: I'm reading three things right now. I just finished Bad Words by Rioghnach Robinson. Incredible book! I'm so excited to be able to put this in people's hands in October. I'm also reading A Prince Among Pirates by Katie Abdou. And I am about to start This Lethal Love by Alicia Jasinska, the sequel to This Fatal Kiss, which ended on a cliffhanger when it came out about two years ago. So I'm very excited about that.

Sara: What is an upcoming event you are excited about that we can shout out? 

Caitlin: On August 17, we're hosting Kimberly Lemming and Máire Roche for the launch of I Punched an Alien and Now We're in Couples Therapy. We also have Bookstore Romance Day coming up in August, and we'll be doing a bookstore crawl August 14–16 with six other Minneapolis bookstores. There's a passport, and fun giveaways and prizes. 

Sara: Sounds exciting! I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to chat with me, Caitlin! And I am excited to see Tropes and Trifles in person soon! 

Cailtin: Thanks! We’re excited to have you! 

All Aboard! 

Get ready to rally, Readin’ readers, because our next stop is just on the horizon. Remember to give love to your community by supporting an indie bookstore near you. You might even see it pop up on our Romance Road Trip!