If your commute could use a little more of a plot, Toronto’s busiest transit hub has transformed into a browsing spot for readers who like their stories either heart-fluttering or hair-raising (or perhaps a bit of both?).
Hopeless Romantic Books and Little Ghosts Books have teamed up for a limited-time pop-up that puts romance and horror on the same shelves at Union Station, in a decidedly pretty pink-and-black mashup!
The collab runs through May 31 and is meant to provide a space for two genres that have historically been marginalized in the literary space, so you can expect a fun selection of books you won’t typically find in a single-genre shop.
Hopeless Romantic Books is a romance-focused bookstore with a flagship store at 1080 Queen St. W., and it’s been generating lineups since it launched last year. Little Ghosts Books is a Canadian queer-owned bookstore and café at 930 Dundas St. W., and it made headlines when it opened in 2022 for being Canada’s first dedicated horror bookshop.
Romance and horror may seem like an unlikely pairing, but the crossover between the indie stores has sparked tons of comments online.
“Never making it to work or home on time from February to May,” one user wrote on Instagram. Others promised to drop in mid-commute, with one commenter writing “YESSSSS! so excited to pop by on my way home from work.”
Little Ghosts Books says Union Station could have gone with any bookstore, but instead reached out to small businesses. The build happened fast (like really fast): there was a one-week sprint from setup to opening. And the costs were high enough that sharing the pop-up with Hopeless Romantic Bookshop made it feel more feasible for stock, build-out, rent and staffing.
“[The] Hopeless Romantic team [was] generous in managing communications, [while the] Little Ghosts team handled furniture pickups and errands,” Little Ghosts wrote in a recent Substack post, thanking the “feral readers” who lined up for hours at Union Station on opening day earlier this month.
You can catch the Hopeless Romantic Bookshop x Little Ghosts Books pop-up until May 31, 2026, at Union Station (it’s open 7 days a week from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.). To find it, head to Union Station’s lower retail level in the Front Street Promenade (the main shopping corridor) and look for the chic pink-and-black storefront!
