The Cult of Romance Novels

Clutch your pearls and cancel your plans, because this week Sounds Like A Cult is getting spicy. We’re welcoming our brand new co-host Iman Hariri-Kia (@imanharirikia), romance author, cultural critic, and certified defender of the genre, to break down The Cult of Romance Novels. We're joined by romance author Alexa Martin (@alexambooks) to talk about romance novels as sex education for women, the intense sense of community among readers, and why the genre is so often dismissed despite being wildly popular. Plus, we get into beloved tropes, Heated Rivalry, and how Alexa might have accidentally predicted the Travis Kelce/Taylor Swift era. Is romance harmless hopecore, or a full-blown belief system? Plus, what that snake tongue do?

You can listen to The Cult of Romance Novels online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The Cult of Romance Novels is an episode from Sounds Like A Cult by Studio71.

This episode is 70:38 long.

This episode was published on Feb 10, 2026.

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