“Have your main-character moment when you step through these doors,” Amanda Anderson tells me from the love seat at the front of The Last Chapter, the romance-only bookstore she opened in Roscoe Village two years ago.
The sentiment fits; the shop practically invites an entrance. Velvet furniture, soft lighting and thoughtfully arranged shelves make the space feel equal parts bookstore and fanciful refuge. Even the photo booths—three of them, each its own tiny world—feel like winks at the genre: one lined with heart-shaped Post-its, another mossy with a glowing neon sign.
After years on Wattpad—home to fan-fiction epics and plot twists dramatic enough to make a high-school English teacher blush—and later at a marketing firm supporting indie romance authors, Anderson realized she wanted to build something offline and decidedly analog. She found it on a cheerful stretch of Roscoe Village, just blocks from where she grew up. After touring 36 potential spaces, she landed on 2013 West Roscoe Street. The place simply felt right, she says—like it had been waiting for her.
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“This genre saves lives. This genre makes people feel so seen, and that should be celebrated,” she tells me with conviction.
For Anderson, romance became meaningful in ways she never anticipated. After her godmother passed away from cancer, she found herself unmoored, moving through the world without the emotional vocabulary to describe what she was feeling. A friend handed her a copy of The Summer I Turned Pretty, and through 16-year-old Belly Conklin’s heartbreak and confusion, Anderson finally recognized pieces of her own grief. “[Belly] put into words what I couldn’t,” she says. “And she came out on top.”
The store’s name grew from a small readerly habit that became something of a personal truth. Whether she was pages into a prologue or barely starting chapter one, Anderson would tell friends she was on “the last chapter” whenever she needed more time tucked inside a story. It felt fitting for a space devoted entirely to the pleasure of lingering—of letting yourself stay in a world a little longer.
Inside The Last Chapter, that same care shapes the curation. Clear signage guides visitors through the genre’s many branches—fantasy, sapphic, thriller, contemporary, small-town and more—showing the breadth of romance rather than the clichés that often define it. Anderson, who is tri-racial, wanted to build a place where readers could recognize themselves without needing to explain themselves.
“Growing up, there weren’t people who looked like me or families that looked like mine,” she says. “I wanted to create a store where you don’t need labels—you’re celebrated as you exist.”
The Last Chapter’s customers reflect that intersectionality Anderson strives to cultivate: longtime romance devotees who walk in with a mission; neighborhood regulars who stop by the way others might swing in for a latte; and curious passersby pulled in by the glow of velvet furniture and the promise of a good story. During our conversation, one regular slipped through the door with the casual warmth of someone entering a friend’s living room—proof of how quickly the space has become a community hub.
What sets The Last Chapter apart isn’t only its heart—it’s that it’s Chicago’s first and only romance-only bookstore. In a city dense with literary institutions, Anderson has managed to carve out something rare: a niche that feels both specific and universally inviting.
The neighborhood has embraced her. She and nearby Roscoe Books send customers each other’s way, creating a small circuit of literary goodwill. Events, author readings, and collaborations fill the calendar, all shaped by Anderson’s “local is best” philosophy.
Next year, The Last Chapter will celebrate five years in business—a milestone that speaks to more than endurance. It reflects a community built on feeling seen, welcomed and occasionally swept away. For updates on events and partnerships, patrons can visit the shop’s website.