Stock markets soar and plummet. Orange Presidents get elected in and out of office. Hemlines rise and rise. Vinyls give way to cassette tapes, which give way to CDs, which give way to iPods, which give way to streaming and vinyl again. And through it all, love has been a constant. Romance novels have sold steadily. Because, who doesn’t love a good love story? Who doesn’t want to see a hero melt, a feisty heroine meet her match, a star-crossed pairing, a meet-cute, a tender first kiss and a promise of forever?

We asked too soon. In 2025, none of those tropes are cutting it with Indian readers. No one wants engineering students grappling with careers and love. No one wants the nerdy girl to land the campus hero. No one wants the arranged-match-turned-to-love story.

What defines an Indian romance novel now? You’ll find out in a heartbeat. Spoilers ahead!

Hero? He’s a supporting character

“Romance novels used to be a man’s world,” says Swati Hegde, 29, author of Can’t Help Faking in Love (2025) and Match Me If You Can (2024). The heroes were mostly IIT students, engineers or businessmen, dreaming of the perfect woman to complete them. “The heroines were manic pixie dream girls or sati savitris. I remember when 3 Idiots (based on Chetan Bhagat’s book Five Point Someone) came out in 2009, many of my guy friends saw that as the ideal: Go to IIT, goof around with friends, marry the dean’s daughter.”

Now, heroes take up less space on the page. In Can’t Help Faking in Love, the heroine, US-returned Harsha Godbole, is single and rich, and intends to keep it that way. She hires a barista to playact as her BF, so her family stops pestering her about marriage. Such a mood! The barista, Veer, isn’t your average Bollywood struggler. He has panic attacks, and isn’t afraid to be emotionally vulnerable in front of Harsha. The heroine is at the centre of the tale. “The man is there to support her and help her achieve her goals.”

Indian-American author Sonali Dev, who has written 13 books over the past decade, has changed the way heroes are written. They’re no longer “strong and tall”; they identify as feminist. “A desirable man is now someone who’s a good human, not someone who’s physically attractive,” she says.

Krish, from Dev’s 2025 novel, There’s Something About Mira, challenges her and shows up for her when it counts. In one scene in the book, he’s driving her somewhere on a motorbike, but maintains a respectable distance so as not to freak her out. “And the important thing is, he doesn’t have to be taught all of these things,” says Dev. “He’s just genuinely good.”

Heroine? She’s no fair damsel

Blame Mills & Boon for teaching generations of young women that alabaster meant milky white, that women’s waists should be no wider than their man’s hand-span, that tousled was the only descriptor for curls. And flush those ridiculous descriptors away.

Dev’s leading ladies struggle with their weight, and openly resent being pigeonholed as mere beauties. Mallika Guru, the 27-year-old aspiring choreographer from Lies and Other Love Languages (2023), is troubled by her distinctly “non-aquiline” nose, which her family regards as proof of their lineage, and constantly compares herself to her badass, successful mother. But over the course of the story, she realises that she can actually be whoever she chooses to be. Even if it means being a misfit. “Being beautiful is different from feeling beautiful,” Dev says. “I want my characters to understand this difference.”

The One? Which one?

“Romantic heroes and heroines are allowed to have exes,” says Hegde. In Radhika Agrawal’s 2024 book, Red Flags and Rishtas, Ananya Kapoor is a serial dater, processing feelings of past rejection. Aadar, the other half of this romance, is recovering from the death of a former fiancée. Agrawal finds the very idea of two people coming in fresh and developing a passionate yearning kind of toxic. “It’s simply not realistic. Our complicated backstories are what make us recognise and invest in a lasting relationship.”

There are new rules, too. Ananya sets up coffee dates for those she’s going to ghost, lunch dates for second-chances, and dinner and drinks when she’s #DTF. Authors must make room for second chances, says Nona Uppal, 26, author of Fool Me Twice (2024). Readers often come to her crying in disbelief, because the main character Sana’s first love was killed in an accident. “It’s so difficult to convince ourselves that it’s okay to love again,” says Uppal. “That’s exactly the conversation I wanted to start.”

Priorities? Me first

Throughout Red Flags and Rishtas, Ananya’s not just figuring out how relationships and attraction works, but also where she fits in the corporate world. The reader sees her rushing about at her high-flying magazine job, organising events, networking, and putting out fires. Aadar, a senior marketing manager, cares about getting things done right. Their jobs come first. “Readers want to see the main characters have the professional desires, ambitions, and goals they themselves have,” says Agrawal.

All of Dev’s books are primarily about “believing in your own loveability.” So, we see the main characters ugly-crying, failing, and feeling like the world will end, but ultimately embracing their flawed and chaotic selves. “Mistakes aren’t as absolute as they once were, both in romance and in real life. You can stand back up and hope again, even after grief, loss, and broken hearts.”

Villains? Not society

“To me, the ‘com’ in rom-com stands for community,” says Dev. It’s showing up in our love stories. Dev says that when she’d write about two Brown protagonists earlier, editors would ask her to “make one of them White”. Now, they welcome Indian tropes – the big fat Indian wedding, the big bunch of cousins, the nosy but well-meaning relatives.

Tarun Vikash, author of She Stood By Me (2019) and The Right Guy (2024), says the Indian romance formula used to be all drama: “Couples would make elaborate plans to meet, and prioritise love over work,” he says. It ignored the very real idea that love is in the banal details: “It’s about friendship, the daily texts, the things you do for each other at the expense of your time and energy.” In The Right Guy, there are no grand gestures, no K-drama-level kisses or displays of affection. ““That’s because we’re still learning to communicate, and express, love.”

Love? Yes, and...

Situationships alone don’t keep young people up at night. They’re worried about AI taking over, climate change, and why mating birds are breaking up. So, when Nayantara Violet Alva, 26, set out to write Liberal Hearts (2024), she initially envisioned a coming-of-age drama.

“But Vir and Namya, had so much chemistry that the romance just bloomed!” Namya studies at an elite university; Vir is the educated small-towner who gave up his dreams to support his family. There are fierce culture shocks and prejudices on the road to love. “They make each other better by acknowledging the other’s POV. That’s what we need more of today.”

In Uppal’s book, Fool Me Twice, Sana grapples with the accidental death of her first love, Ashish. “In a post-Covid world, the way people my age deal with grief is different from the way my parents, and my grandparents, processed it,” she says. “Everyone is open to talking about their difficult, disjointed families, trauma and generational abuse.” Sana’s love interest Pranav struggles with OCD. “Life isn’t hunky-dory. We want to see romances, but we want them to show this complexity, too.”

Marriage? Not the goal

At the end of Red Flags and Rishtas, there’s some uncertainty about where Ananya and Aadar are headed. It’s by design, says Agrawal. “Young people today look at love as a journey, not a destination. We’ve moved on from happily-ever-afters. A tale doesn’t have to end in marriage for it to qualify as a love story.”

Hegde’s novel, Can’t Help Faking in Love, closes with Harsha and Veer deciding to start dating, for real. There’s no rush to get hitched. “I don’t want a perfect happily-ever-after ending,” she tells him, when he’s concerned about not being able to match her standard of living. Instead, she tells him she wants “benne masala dosa, filter coffee, and a life we can build together.”

From HT Brunch, May 3, 2025

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