This Bookstore Trip Report is from HeatherS! Her current obsessions are buying books at romance bookstores and being a card-carrying member of the Bad Decisions Book Club. A longtime member of the SBTB community, HeatherS currently lives in Texas where currently her brain is at least 90% Heated Rivalry now – hyperfixation say what?
We’re doing a double bookstore visit today!
Finney’s Books opened in east Austin, Texas in December 2025. Originally open just on weekends due to the owner having a day job, they recently expanded their hours to being open Tuesday-Sunday. A queer-woman-owned indie bookstore tucked away in a little strip mall on Airport Blvd, Finney’s is tiny but mighty, just like the store’s canine namesake.
Featuring a curated selection of indie and trad published books and bookish merch, Finney’s aims to cater to romance lovers. The selection of books by indie authors is great and owner Cameron Lagrone focuses heavily on stocking books that you won’t find on the shelves of your local Barnes and Noble.
I also loved that she tries to stock both model/people and alternate/discrete covers so that you can choose the style you prefer (I’m generally a fan of model/people covers). This resulted in a very large haul on my first trip to the store; it was just too exciting to be able to buy these titles right off the shelf instead of having to special order them!
When you walk in, there’s a cart with new arrivals on one side and discounted books on the reverse and a display of new and monthly book club reads at the register, with tote bags hanging on the wall behind. On Friday afternoons and weekends, you may be greeted by Finney himself.
Grab a basket at the door because you’re going to need one for all of the stickers.
A cozy loveseat and chair in a nook to the right invite you to take a seat while you browse the new arrivals. A rack of t-shirts with bookish themes and a tall shelf of drinkware, candles, bags, Kindle covers, whimsical hair claw clips, pins, and other assorted merch sits beside the feature display, which currently contains books and merch for Rachel Reid’s “Game Changers” series and Elle Kennedy’s “Off Campus” series.
There’s almost a whole bookshelf of books by local authors right up front. Around the shop, shelf tags include Contemporary, Sports, Western, Historical, Paranormal, Romantasy, Dark Romance, and Young Adult, among others. There’s a shelf full of special edition hardcovers with sprayed edges. LGBTQ+ books are interfiled and tagged with the appropriate Pride flag to help you spot what you’re looking for.
A quartet of comfortable armchairs gathered around a coffee table in the middle of the store encourage you to sit and stay a while to browse the basket of blind dates with a book, read, or chat with the owner and other customers about your favorite books, authors, and tropes. Reader, I did stay a while. I loved Finney’s so much that I went back for a second visit a couple of weeks later and didn’t want to leave.
Finney’s has several book clubs – Contemporary, Dark, Romantasy, Queer, and one dedicated exclusively to Rachel Reid’s “Game Changers” series, in addition to a monthly “Heated Rivalry Support Group” meeting for those of us who aren’t leaving the cottage anytime soon.
You can order books and other items on the website for in-store pick up; they don’t ship, but you can support them by shopping on Bookshop.org and choosing their store for your support. I found it much easier to visit in person, since many items don’t appear on the site.
Drive 30 minutes to nearby Lakeway, west of Austin proper, and you’ll find Flutter Romance Bookstore. Flutter opened in February 2025. Owned by author Laurelin Paige, Flutter boasts a wide variety of romance books and bookish merch. The long front porch has a variety of seating for customers to enjoy on nice days.
There’s a big shelf of signed books and special editions (great for gifting!) and a lot of Dark and Why Choose?, if that is your jam. More shelves are dedicated to Contemporary, New Adult, Small Town, Sports, Historical, Romantasy, Monster/Alien, YA, Sports, and Banned Books. The LGBTQ+ books of all types are shelved together, which made browsing them specifically very easy.
Flutter participates in local book events like City Fling and Kiss & Tell, so sometimes the store can get a bit messy as the staff prepare merchandise for those events. Some areas of the store are very open and easy to get around in, but others can be narrow and cramped and not very accessible due to freestanding displays.
They’re in the process of adding on a coffee shop, Entre Las Nubes Cafecito, where you’ll be able to purchase coffee drinks through a window on the front porch.
Flutter also has book clubs: Into the Dark for confirmed dark romance fans, Soft Dark for those who want to try out the genre but not dive right in the deep end, Flutter Effect (contemporary romance), Pride & Paperbacks (LGBTQ+), Flutterbound (romantasy and paranormal), and dedicated clubs for Zodiac Academy and ACOTAR. They host author events and community activities like craft nights, book cover bedazzling, and writing clubs.
If you live in or around the Austin area or are passing through, make sure to take a detour and visit these great bookshops!
Thank you for the trip report, HeatherS! You can find Finney’s Books at 3823 Airport Blvd D in Austin, and you can find Flutter Romance Bookstore at 2903 Unit A Ranch Road 620 N, also in Austin.
If you’d like to write a trip report about your visit to a romance-focused bookstore, I would LOVE to hear from you.