{"id":91179,"date":"2026-09-08T18:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T18:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/91179\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T18:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T18:28:11","slug":"romance-bookshop-to-be-read-opens-second-location-on-mandurah-foreshore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/91179\/","title":{"rendered":"Romance bookshop To Be Read opens second location on Mandurah foreshore"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">Romance readers in the Mandurah community will now have a much bigger selection for their next read as a popular Midlands bookstore debuts its second location on the foreshore.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">To Be Read Bookshop opened in Midland last year and has since amassed over 20,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/ca88a45c30b016e0217ce6349563f56970588c9e.jpg\" alt=\"To Be Read Bookshop stocks a wide array of the romance and fantasy genre\" class=\"css-16r7l45-StyledImage en5ut4d0\"\/>Camera IconTo Be Read Bookshop stocks a wide array of the romance and fantasy genre Credit: Ava Berryman<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">Owner Lauren Allan first started as a BookTokker under the username Redreadsbooks when her passion for reading was re-ignited during a COVID-19 lockdown and she wanted to connect with like-minded people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">From there, she started Perth Bookish Baddies, a Facebook group with more than 8500 members hosting monthly book club meetups to connect readers across Perth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">Ms Allen said her shift to retail came from a desire to see more choice in the romance genre on her local bookshop shelves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cI got kind of sick of going into shops and not finding the books that I was wanting to read, or not being able to find an abundance of them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cI thought, if I felt this way, other people must be too, and so my husband said \u2018well, just do it yourself\u2019 and that\u2019s what I did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">As an avid romance and fantasy reader, Ms Allen said the shift she has seen on social media from the genre being a \u201cguilty pleasure\u201d to mainstream reading has been amazing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cI think it\u2019s opening so many doors for people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cI feel like it\u2019s something we used to be OK with hiding, but now we\u2019re happy to put it out there and have fun. It\u2019s given people a community, and now we get to connect about the books we\u2019re reading and make new friends with similar interests.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cOpening To Be Read has really brought all of my passions into one space.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/8944a68b7de52fe0ec43d46343eb95632cec4a22.jpg\" alt=\"To Be Read Bookshop's second location is on Smart Street in Mandurah\" class=\"css-16r7l45-StyledImage en5ut4d0\"\/>Camera IconTo Be Read Bookshop&#8217;s second location is on Smart Street in Mandurah Credit: Ava Berryman<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">Ms Allen said there was huge demand for a Mandurah location, and she has been overwhelmed by the positive response since its launch on Saturday, August 29.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cI\u2019ve been blown away with the support we\u2019ve gotten,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cI had a lot of customers coming in to the Midland store and asking for a Mandurah location, but you never know what the turnout will actually be like.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cIt has been amazing. We had lines on Saturday, lines on Sunday, the girls (her staff) have been kept pretty busy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">With regular author signings, release nights and book clubs being hosted at her Midland store, Ms Allen said she hopes to expand the Mandurah location in the future to include similar events.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cThe plan is to see how Mandurah goes and eventually expand to be able to offer the same things as our Midland store,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cSo long as we have continued interest and support, we would love to see it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">To Be Read Bookshop is located at Shop 6A, 8 Smart Street, Mandurah and open 10am to 4pm Monday to Friday, 9am to 4pm Saturday, and 10am to 3pm Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Romance readers in the Mandurah community will now have a much bigger selection for their next read as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[3880,335,464],"class_list":["post-91179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-perth","tag-mandurah","tag-perth","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}