Bitcoin Bodice Rippers Are Romance’s Most Sizzling New Subgenre
Why cryptocurrency solves for our moral calculus of arousal
The romance novel series Bitcoin Billionaires snuck into my life last month via a lockscreen ad on my e-reader, which dependably serves up teasers for sexy Kindle Unlimited stories about vampire spies who fall in love, time-traveling Scottish warriors who fall in love, and Victorian nobles who have sworn never to fall in love, but fall in love.
Jack: A Cryptocurrency Billionaire Romance (Bitcoin Billionaires Book 1)intrigued me: It was the juxtaposition of an unromantic word (“cryptocurrency”) with a romantic word (“romance,” duh). The wealth-fantasy romance subgenre is well established, of course. Fifty Shades of Grey has its mansions and private helicopter; rich guy/poor girl titles are seemingly endless. And every generation going back centuries, from the Victorian era to the Jazz Age, has its own version of the romantic fuck boi who will save you from your hardscrabble life and give you the love you deserve, preferably in a stone castle.
But the crypto billionaire distinction was something new. Have women grown weary…