Free tool · Counted, not estimated · as of 2026-09-07

Contemporary — Small Town Romance — what readers are actually asking for

Every trope we publish for Contemporary — Small Town Romance, ranked by reader-demand mentions counted over the 28 weeks to 2026-08-24. 26,541 trope mentions counted in the lane in that window. Pick one for the full readout.

Genre / subgenre Trope

Changing the genre and pressing Check demand reloads the trope list for that lane. 3,589 trope-and-lane readouts are published today.

#	Trope	Mentions	Share of lane	Direction	Tagged titles
1	Found Family	1,808	6.81%	Rising	345
2	Slow Burn	1,194	4.50%	Holding steady	296
3	Small Town	1,183	4.46%	Cooling	199
4	Second Chance	1,179	4.44%	Holding steady	309
5	Forced Proximity	1,118	4.21%	Rising	758
6	Single Parent	548	2.06%	Cooling	154
7	Grumpy Sunshine	436	1.64%	Cooling	227
8	Enemies to Lovers	406	1.53%	Holding steady	383
9	Banter	353	1.33%	Holding steady	6,178
10	Friends to Lovers	352	1.33%	Holding steady	84
11	Protective Hero	266	1.00%	Holding steady	187
12	He Falls First	247	0.93%	Cooling	52
13	Fake Dating / Fake Relationship	237	0.89%	Rising	92
14	Hurt/Comfort	230	0.87%	Cooling	218
15	Age Gap	215	0.81%	Holding steady	—
16	Opposites Attract	212	0.80%	Cooling	122
17	Ensemble Cast	209	0.79%	Rising	—
18	Romantic Suspense	192	0.72%	Cooling	17
19	Marriage of Convenience	191	0.72%	Holding steady	179
20	Reverse Harem / Why Choose	176	0.66%	Cooling	88
21	Grumpy MMC	175	0.66%	Rising	181
22	Fated Mates	173	0.65%	Holding steady	215
23	Protective MMC	167	0.63%	Cooling	298
24	Character Growth	156	0.59%	Rising	9
25	Mystery / Suspense Element	151	0.57%	Rising	56
26	Emotional Depth	146	0.55%	Rising	29
27	Paranormal Romance	145	0.55%	Rising	109
28	Omegaverse	144	0.54%	Cooling	610
29	Instalove	142	0.54%	Cooling	1,186
30	Sports Romance	133	0.50%	Rising	91
31	Boss / Employee	131	0.49%	Cooling	160
32	Redemption Arc	129	0.49%	Rising	47
33	Single Parent Romance	127	0.48%	Rising	1
34	Trauma Recovery	126	0.47%	Holding steady	17
35	Series Continuation	115	0.43%	Rising	3
36	Forbidden Romance	102	0.38%	Cooling	338
37	Cowboy Romance	98	0.37%	Holding steady	8
38	Character Driven	97	0.37%	Rising	—
39	Brother's Best Friend	96	0.36%	Cooling	65
40	Healing Journey	90	0.34%	Cooling	14
41	Self Discovery	88	0.33%	Rising	12
42	Plot Twists	74	0.28%	Rising	38
43	Romance	73	0.28%	Rising	1
44	Series Romance	73	0.28%	Rising	3
45	One Night Stand	72	0.27%	Cooling	55
46	Meet Cute	66	0.25%	Rising	18
47	Series Arc	66	0.25%	Rising	—
48	Spicy Romance	65	0.24%	Rising	—
49	Contemporary Romance	62	0.23%	Not called	—
50	Childhood Friends to Lovers	61	0.23%	Cooling	34
51	Miscommunication	58	0.22%	Rising	7,215
52	Sweet Romance	57	0.21%	Rising	8
53	Dual POV	57	0.21%	Rising	19
54	Strong FMC	55	0.21%	Holding steady	71
55	Secret Baby	54	0.20%	Not called	48
56	Angst	53	0.20%	Cooling	3,262
57	Possessive Hero	53	0.20%	Cooling	98
58	Page Turner	53	0.20%	Holding steady	2
59	MC / Motorcycle Club Romance	53	0.20%	Cooling	2
60	Coming Of Age	52	0.20%	Holding steady	4

Direction is the change in each trope’s share of the lane between the last 12 weeks and the 12 before — never a raw weekly move. “Not called” means the two bands hold fewer than 30 mentions between them and we will not pretend otherwise. Tagged titles are counted across our whole registry, not just this lane.

Keep going — free

Lane score for Contemporary — Small Town Romance — is the genre worth writing at all?
Every free Tropesmith tool — lane scores, trope opportunity check, reader demand, category & rank checker, Hook Lab.
The 2026 Romance Demand Report — the full year’s read on where romance demand is heading, from the same engine.
Lane Score — is the subgenre worth writing at all?
Trope Demand Checker — pick a genre and a trope, see the counted reader demand.

Build my Contemporary — Small Town Romance Map → All genres