The winner this year is The Ripped Bodice, the only exclusively romance bookstore on the West Coast of the USA.
Sisters and owners Leah and Bea Koch raised $91,000 on Kickstarter to bring their dream of a romance-only bookstore to life. The Ripped Bodice opened its doors in March 2016 and has been growing and thriving ever since.
Bea and Leah Koch grew up in Chicago, IL. Bea went on to attend Yale and NYU, where she wrote a graduate thesis titled ‘Mending the Ripped Bodice’. Leah attended USC in Los Angeles, graduating cum laude with a degree in visual and performing arts. Both sisters are lifelong romance readers and feel lucky to spend their days surrounded by books.