Renee Houtstra, a mindset coach based in Alberta, Canada, first discovered romance through hardship. In 2018, she suffered a stroke that significantly impaired her ability to read. As she recovered, she had to teach herself how to read again, and found that contemporary romance novels, with their formulaic plots and digestible prose, proved to be an accessible place to start. By the time pandemic lockdowns hit in 2020, Houtstra was fully engaged in one of the biggest publishing trends in recent memory: the boom of the romance genre. Suddenly, she was flying through books at warp speed. “I went from reading one or two books a year to reading 200 books a year,” Houtstra says.

Like many others, Houtstra’s ascension into romance was in part fueled by social media, where online communities like #BookTok have catalysed the genre’s growth. It was through these recommendation-filled rabbit holes that Houtstra eventually came across what can essentially be described as the romance genre’s seedier cousin: dark romance. 

Typically characterised by morally grey male love interests, explicit writing, and trauma-heavy back stories, the sub-genre of dark romance is not for the faint of heart. As romance editor Emily Keyes wrote in 2024, books in this category often include darker themes such as abuse, captivity and dubious consent. Think stories where a female protagonist falls for her stalker, kidnapper or even the local mafia boss. Houtstra was hardly the only one taking an interest in dark romance: a 2025 report from market research group Circana noted that sales of romance books with darker themes have been steadily on the rise, and currently, there are over five million TikToks with the #darkromance hashtag.

In 2024, Houtstra, spurred by her love of these books and the attention she was seeing them gain online, founded The Boyfriend Book Box, a curated subscription box that allows readers to imagine fictitious boyfriends as their own. Each box is themed around a dark romance story, and theoretically, is meant to be a gift from the book’s male lead to the recipient. “We were sitting down and thinking, what would he [give] you if he had to take a trip for a week?” Houtstra said of the ideation process. “If it’s a dark hockey romance and he has to go away for a hockey game, what would he leave you? What would he do so he could mark his territory so other people know not to mess with you?”

The answer is a sleek, $497 “boyfriend box”, wrapped up in ribbon. Each box includes a special edition copy of the given character’s book, a candle meant to smell like his room, and a T-shirt and gold chain that theoretically belong to the boyfriend. When it comes to creating the more specific items, like the colognes, Houtstra and her team take no creative liberties, working with a perfumer to get the scent just right. In Nikki J Summer’s The Psycho, for example, the male lead is a club owner; therefore, his cologne has notes of whiskey, cinnamon and leather to evoke the way he’s described as smelling in the book. Sheridan Anne’s War Games, on the other hand, features a main character who’s an assassin, and wouldn’t have a strong scent, lest that blow his cover; his cologne has a “fresh out of the shower” smell instead, says Houtstra.

The same level of care is applied to the box’s replica sex toys, which are, yes, recreations of the fictional boyfriend’s private parts, specially designed based on descriptions in the text. Working with a manufacturer, Houtstra takes everything from vein placement to colour matching to accessories into consideration. “If they’re pierced in the book, they come pierced in the box,” she says. Of course, the authors themselves take part in the box curation process, too. While some are more involved than others, each author gets paid royalties for all boxes sold. (And, given that indie authors own all the rights to their work, they’re usually the category of writers The Boyfriend Book Box works with the most.)

“If it’s a dark hockey romance and he had to go away for a hockey game, what would he leave you? What would he do so he could mark his territory so other people know not to mess with you?”

Along with the intense attention to detail, the other appeal of the business is the limited-edition nature of the product, as Boyfriend Book Box only releases four boxes a year. Readers who are on the less extreme side of their fandom, or don’t feel like shelling out the $497, can purchase items from the site a la carte, or purchase a smaller version of the box, which includes the toy, book and NSFW artwork, for $239. This hype-driven yet choose-your-own adventure model has proven successful for Houtstra; according to the founder, the business has made over $800,000 since 2024, and the waitlist to join the subscription is over 20,000.

So who’s purchasing these expensive odes to fictional men? Well, one doesn’t have to look far to see that Houtstra has tapped into a very real market amongst readers. As escapism-leaning genres like romance and fantasy continue to grow, there appears to be a desire to experience storylines beyond the page and take part in fandom in a way that feels more tangible. Take the buzzy romance fiction company 831 Stories, for example – the indie publishing house not only puts out books, but also sells clothing, creates Spotify playlists and hosts events inspired by its novels. In an interview with NPR, founder Erica Cerulo said that, in creating the company, she and her co-founder were thinking about “how do we bring these books to life in our real world? How do we think of them as a sort of augmented reality?”

As Houtstra has found, bringing books to life can mean building community, too. The Boyfriend Book Box has a subscriber Facebook group, where members can share memes, TikToks and book recommendations. “I’m very much the type who likes to have a connection with the clients and customers,” says Houtstra. “And so, being able to do that, and have jokes and fun, was my main goal with it – building a community within the book community without the  negativity that comes through all the time.” 

Of course, it’s impossible to talk about dark romance without addressing the stigmas surrounding the sub-genre. But while it can be easy to dismiss them as disturbing smut, Houtstra points out that reading men written by female authors can be very powerful for some women, especially given that these books often include dual POV, meaning you see the man’s perspective. According to Houtstra, that inner glimpse makes it easier to become attached to these characters, especially when their softer side is shown. “It's not so much about the fact that they are a billionaire in the book,” she says. “It’s the fact that he didn't stop holding her hand in that one meeting, kind of idea.”

It’s also worth noting that real-life boyfriends often have some morally grey qualities of their own, yet may lack the redemption arc (or smouldering eyes) that fictional boyfriends provide. In any case, it’s not hard to imagine why, in a world that feels as chaotic as today’s, leaning into escapism, even by measures as extreme as wearing a fictional character’s cologne, can be enticing. “It turns fantasy into reality,” says Houtstra.