Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Tucked away on Main Street in a quaint and inviting storefront is a new bookstore whose owner hopes will fill a long awaited niche in the world of reading.

Trish Marin has opened the second brick and mortar bookstore in Minnesota, Hey Darling, dedicated to the world of romance, something she said lovers of the genre have been looking for.

“This is something the romance readers have desperately wanted,” Marin said. “I’m really glad we can do it here.”

Hey Darling opened in October after a whirlwind run that started in August of this year. Demolition started in September and just a month later they were open with a soft opening.

“It was a quick process,” Marin said. “It wasn’t something I was for sure planning on doing. The space fell into my lap. This is the universe telling me I have to do it myself.”

While she hadn’t harbored any prior plans to open a store prior to Hey Darling, the idea of providing a space for long-time lovers of romance books just seemed to fit.

Marin jumped in with both feet, turning the location at 213 Main Street North into an area hub for people to find a variety of stories within the pages of books on her shelves.

Marin said that far from what romance readers call bodice-rippers — the romance genre is quite varied in subject and scope. They can range from contemporary stories rooted in everyday life, romantasy or fantasy-based books, dark romance, historical romance and more.

“There’s a lot of depth to it,” Marin said.

The space Marin has created is wide open and homey, inviting people in to browse the offerings on her shelves. It was important for her when conceiving of what Hey Darling would become that it would be a welcoming establishment without tightly cluttered spaces.

She said that Hey Darling’s aim was to create a safe space for people as well that offered a personal touch.

“I wanted something that’s going to pull a customer to it and give them a sense of lingering,” Marin said. “I just wanted it to feel like you weren’t standing on top of each other.”

Of course, there are other draws as well including merchandise that ranges from totes, pencil bags, stickers and enamel pins.

That merchandise will continue to grow as well with more expected to come in.

She also offers something called a blind date box that includes goodies and a book, generally an indie-published book and that can be hard to find.

“I’ve gotten a lot of really great feedback,” Marin said. “People love them. It’s a little bit of a surprise if you can’t decide on something.”

In conjunction with all of this is an effort to create community and one of the ways Marin is doing that at Hey Darling is through a book club that meets once a month.

“We usually pick a book and have a month to read it, and we all just meet and chat about the book,” Marin said, adding that meetings generally take about two, three hours. “The turnout has been awesome.”

At the end of the day, Marin hopes that her contribution to downtown Austin gives people a destination where they can throw themselves into a genre that fans truly want.

It’s why, she said, that Hey Darling feels personal to those who walk through the doors because, in fact, it is personal and reflects her own long history of loving to read.

“I want (customers) to know they can come in and talk to me,” Marin said. “I want it to feel personal. That’s why I made it really pretty and nice to look at. Every inch of my store has a piece of me in it.”

There’s also one more aspect to this dream that has made the opening of Hey Darling such a wonderful journey and that is Gypsy K, just a short walk south on Main Street and owned by Marin’s close friend, Katelyn Gromleski.

“It’s been great,” Marin said. “I think it’s been really cool because we support each other more than just being great friends.”

Marin said that opening Hey Darling was something of a leap of faith, coming from a job she felt secure in for six plus years.

At the same time, this is a dream and she’s loving having jumped into it.

“I’ve been doing this long enough, I can do it myself,” she said. “I feel like people have been super supportive and helpful and they want nothing but the best for our community to grow.”

“It turned out better than I thought it was,” she added.

Hey Darling is open 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. on Sundays.