MILWAUKEE — Tucked between an art studio and a barre studio is a jewel-toned teal storefront on North Avenue on the border of Milwaukee and Wauwatosa, Wis. A bay window offers a peek inside a pastel pink wonderland where happy endings are guaranteed.

Kerrie Berg, a self-proclaimed “smut sommelier,” opened Thirst, an all-romance bookstore, in late May, but her dreamy storefront has been her dream for a long time.

What You Need To Know

  • Kerrie Berg, a self-proclaimed “smut sommelier,” opened Thirst, an all-romance bookstore, in late May, but her dreamy storefront has been her dream for a long time
  • Her shelves are stocked with local authors, the hottest books trending on social media and everything in between
  • Thirst aims to offer a space for everyone, too. Berg has already started book clubs for readers interested in specific sub-genres of romance. She has pop-ups and monthly after-hours events, with plans to add more programming, ranging from author signings to author readings and craft nights

Berg, a lifelong Wisconsinite, grew up in a house of “language and literature people.” Her parents read to her constantly, trying everything from Shakespeare to fairytales.

Listening to stories turned to reading, and reading turned into dreams of opening her own bookstore one day.

“I had a very romantic idea of what that would be. That you’d be sitting around reading books all day and talking to people,” Berg said. “Now that I’ve had one for almost [two months], it’s a busy thing. It’s actually busy and vibrant. It’s blowing my mind how exciting that is.” 

(Aliza Baran)

While it’s busier than she imagined when she was a kid, perhaps it’s even better.

On opening day, there was a four-hour line that spanned for four blocks just to get into Thirst. The line stood strong for five-and-a-half hours.

The next day, Berg was met with yet another line.

On her third day of business, Berg went outside to place her sign on the sidewalk and she was met with a small crowd of people waiting to get in.

“I opened my door to put on my sign, and they were like, ‘Oh, we need to come in.’ I was like, ‘Oh I was just gonna put out my sign,’ but they’re pushing to come into my store in the cutest way possible. They wanted it, and I obliged, I promise you,” Berg recounted. 

Inside the store, which is painted pink with accents of blue — a nod to the cover of “Variation” by Rebecca Yarros — is a physical culmination of Berg’s favorite books and her “to be read” list, or as many in the book community call it, a TBR.

“I think the hardest thing is putting it down and not reading it,” Berg said. “You’re unpacking basically your physical TBR, and you have to keep putting them down and telling them you’re going to come back to them later.”

Her domed shelves fill up quickly, as do the tables that run down the center of her store. One of those shelves is dedicated to Shain Rose, who wrote one of Berg’s favorite books, “Between Commitment and Betrayal,” the first of a four-piece series. Rose is from Milwaukee, which Berg did not even realize when she first picked up the book.

“That’s the only time that’s happened, where I was like, someone is from Milwaukee, and I was sitting in Milwaukee reading a book from a writer that was in Milwaukee and I found them kind of myself, like organically myself,” she recalled. 

(Chris Homayouni)

Her shelves are stocked with local authors, the hottest books trending on social media and everything in between.

After all, the inclusivity and diversity the genre offers is why Berg fell in love with romance in the first place when she started reading it in middle school.

“Romance is for everyone, and romance has always had a special place for me. … Romance, for me, is one of the most inclusive, most amazing genres of literature. It’s really doing the hard work to bring all different kinds of people together and represent them, represent them in book [form], represent them on cover and represent them as authors,” she explained.

“Now, we are able to have something for everyone in our stores. So it’s body positivity — you’re seeing plus-size women on covers and being main characters in stories. You’re seeing all different groups represented,” she added. “In my opinion, it’s kind of a golden age of romance writing. It’s never been more exciting, more inclusive. Now you have so much of it out there. It is an amazing time to be a romance writer. It is an amazing time to be a romance reader.” 

(Chris Homayouni)

Thirst aims to offer a space for everyone, too. Berg has already started book clubs for readers interested in specific sub-genres of romance. She has pop-ups and monthly after-hours events, with plans to add more programming, ranging from author signings to author readings and craft nights.

Downstairs is a small space with colorful seating that offers a nook for people to read or socialize during these kinds of events, or even during regular business hours. It’s just the beginning of cultivating community at Thirst. 

It’s just one piece of the 1930s building’s charm, complete with original windows and doors and beams of natural light.

“It’s perfect. It is such a lovely space. It opens itself up more and more to me too, like the storefront itself is so cute and so pretty. … It has this wonderful vibe. And it’s the actual storefront that I envisioned, like, years ago, like I feel like I manifested it,” she said.

People from all over have come to see the dreamy space. Berg said she should have started a map to track where customers were coming from starting opening day as she greeted people from Michigan, Illinois and beyond.

(Chris Homayouni)

But the local readers, she said, keep coming back.

She loves to recommend reads — some of her other favorites include “The Bridge Kingdom” by Danielle Jensen and “My Dark Romeo” by Parker S. Huntington and LJ Shen — and while the ACOTAR (“A Court of Thornes and Roses”) series is a fan favorite she suggests generally often, she said she also loves to personalize her recommendations to see what readers would really click with.

“I want to find you. I want to find you what you want to read. I’m not just trying to sell you the first thing that comes across. We want to find the right thing for you,” she said.

Berg said she made a few of those recommendations the first weekend she opened, and has customers coming back every week looking for her next suggestion.

From romantasy to historical romance, there’s plenty of subgenres to choose from; Berg said she “voraciously” reads them all. There’s also varying levels of “smut” at her store.

“When we talk about closed-door romance, that means where there’s no sex written on page, I absolutely carry that, too, and I make sure to have a little bit of that in different [sub-genres],” she said.

Thirst doesn’t have a young adult section, but it does have books that lean that way.

“I definitely have that spectrum between like cozy, feel-good, a gentle rom-com to absolutely the other end of that spectrum, and I love all of it myself too,” she said.

That may surprise some people, based on the name of the store. Thirst, she said, was not the first idea she had for the name of the store.

“Thirst had a couple different iterations. A couple of years ago, I had a couple of names that, at the time, I thought were pretty amazing. And now they would be eye-rolling for sure,” Berg admitted.

One was “Enemies to Lovers.” However, someone said she shouldn’t have the word “enemies” in the name of her business.

“Thirst as a name came up, maybe like a year and a half ago, two years ago. And then it just took time and gumption and savings and other work and other things and then ultimately, it was finding a location,” she said.

True to the trials of opening a new business, Berg said she had planned to open in 2024, but it didn’t work out. Then she stumbled across her beloved 1930s building in Jan. 2025 and Thirst finally came to life. 

(Chris Homayouni)

It’s been a labor of love from the beginning, and hopefully, for Berg, it’s a love story that will last.