🔥📚 Books that’ll make you blush

It’s Wednesday, Boston.

❣️ Happy Valentine’s Day, B-Siders! If you still haven’t made plans for tonight, may we suggest the “Girl Dinner” special at Bardo’s in Southie for $15 a person? Or check out the Globe’s list of spots to eat tonight sans reservation. Enjoy, lovebirds!

👀 What’s on tap today:

• The snow storm that wasn’t

• Rideshare apps are for the girls

• Levitate’s lineup drop

Up first…

TELEPHONE TAG

Spicy BookTok has entered the chat

Whether you consider it smut, chick lit, or NSFW, romance novels are in. Thanks to shows like “Bridgerton” and sharing favorite reads via #BookTok, sales of the genre are up over 50% since 2020. And since it’s the season of love, consider us on the bandwagon.

On today's edition of small business telephone tag, we asked five local book experts to recommend their favorite romance novel.

Here’s what they said:

💌 Veronica Koven-Matasy loves “The Marquis Who Mustn’t.” This read by Courtney Milan gives you a romance where “the characters not only love each other, but like each other,” said Koven-Matasy, reader services director at the Copley BPL. It’s a sweet “fake fiancées-to-lovers” story set in Victorian England, featuring characters who “are trying so hard, who are going to be so happy together,” she said.

🔥 Jacqueline Atkins loves “Bringing Down the Duke.” For something spicy, Atkins, a floor supervisor at Harvard Book Store, recommends this novel by Evie Dunmore. It’s a romance set in Regency London that is “very spicy, very woman’s rights in the 1800s” and “has a really compelling storyline and the romance is also … very good,” she said.

👨‍❤️‍👨 Katherine Nazzaro loves “The Queer Principles of Kit Webb.” Nazzaro, the store manager at Porter Square Books: Boston Edition, recommends this historical romance by Cat Sebastian. It tells the love story between Kitt, a gentlemanly aristocrat and Gladhand Jack, a former highwayman who he hires to pull a heist on his father. “It’s so fun and dramatic … it has the best banter imaginable … and I love a heist!” Nazzaro said.

🔐 Allison Hahn loves “The Charm Offensive.” If you’re a sucker for reality-TV dating shows, Hahn, a children’s librarian at the Brighton BPL, loves this read by Alison Cochrun. To set the scene: A producer on a The Bachelor-style TV show falls in love with the show’s leading man, leading to a story she describes as funny with fantastic banter. “I ripped right through it. It was just so fun from beginning to end,” Hahn said.

💕 Kyara Andrade-Howell loves “Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Although this American lit classic by Zora Neale Hurston isn’t largely viewed as a romance novel, Andrade-Howell, a bookseller at Frugal Bookstore, thinks “it absolutely is one.” Hurston “writes so beautifully, so poetic, and the love story between [the main characters] just melts my heart,” she said.

QUICK QUESTION

😍 Do you love a good romance novel?

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

🌨️ Uh … Wasn’t there supposed to be a snowstorm? The projected eight to twelve inches of snow for Boston turned out to be a major bust. As it turns out, late Monday afternoon, the storm’s forecast models dramatically shifted southward, putting the storm en route to slam areas like Rhode Island and Connecticut while entirely missing Boston. But by the time meteorologists were able to note the change, the snowmergency had been declared and it was a little too late for officials to take it all back. After 2015’s snowmageddon, we unfortunately take every snowmergency very seriously.

😷 Expect a major shift in the COVID landscape. The CDC is planning to change their COVID guidelines from a recommended five day isolation period to something more reminiscent of the flu or RSV guidelines (although we’re still TBD on their planned advice for masking up). The new guidance is meant to align COVID recommendations with those for similar illnesses and with people’s changing behaviors surrounding COVID — since the guidelines haven’t been updated since 2021. Unsurprisingly, the news has drawn mixed reactions from pros in the public health sphere.

🚗 Rideshare apps are putting women in the driver’s seat. Literally! Lyft has officially launched their Women+Connect feature nationwide after piloting in a few select cities. The feature matches female and nonbinary drivers with female and nonbinary riders in an effort to make the rideshare experience more comfortable and safe for everyone. (Uber is dealing with a major sexual assault lawsuit from over 500 women). That said, the feature is only available on the drivers’ end of things, and doesn’t guarantee anyone any specific gendered driver.

🎵 Levitate’s lineup is nothing to sniff at. Marshfield’s Levitate Music and Arts Festival, which will run from July 5 to 7, just dropped their 2024 lineup. And with names like Lake Street Drive, Mt. Joy, and Tash Sultana, (and, depending on your taste, Oliver Anthony of Rich Men North Of Richmond), we’re kind of hyped. Tickets officially go on sale Thursday, but you can get them right now if you sign up for early access here. You can check out the whole lineup here.

ONE LAST THING

Love Letters

PSA: If you love gossip about people you don’t know, have strong opinions about other peoples’ problems, and most importantly, love, you should be reading Love Letters.

The advice column (and now podcast, too!) by Meredith Goldstein has been running on Boston.com since 2009 and she gives advice to readers who write in with their truly wild love problems. In honor of V-Day, we’re not gatekeeping anymore.

In just the last few weeks, Goldstein has tackled letters about someone finding a pair of strange underwear in their partner’s nightstand, a man claiming that all women refuse to date short men, and another wondering: Is it wrong to not be interested in women over 30? 

Whether you want heartwarming stories, messy drama, or hot takes, it’s a great time. Check it out here.

— Written by Gia Orsino and Emily Schario

💌 Thanks for reading! If I were you, I’d also hit up the comments section. Whew!

💑 The results are in: Most B-Siders met their boos on dating apps, followed closely by school or work. Thank you all for the very sweet love stories you wrote in, including this one: “We met the old fashioned way — blackout drunk at a house party during Southie St. Patrick’s Day Parade.”

💃 Keep up with us @BostonBSide on IG, TikTok, and Twitter. Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected].