Even outside the South and West, people donned glitter cowboy hats and boots à la "Cowboy Carter." They wore black-and-pink Wild West outfits from "Barbie" and the "coastal cowgirl" trend from 2023. Even Taylor Swift, who has since swapped her cowboy boots for sparkly heeled Louboutins, inspired a barrage of country concert outfits for her "Eras" tour.
And it's not just fashion. Though the classic bodice rippers have been around for years - see Lorraine Heath, Linda Lael Miller or Beverly Jenkins - cowboy romance novels are getting a contemporary rebrand of their own.
Lyla Sage may only be in her late twenties, but she's already amassed a loyal fanbase and a spot on the USA TODAY Best-selling Booklist with her "Rebel Blue Ranch" series. Set in the fictional Meadowlark, Wyoming, the series follows several small-town love stories through "Done and Dusted," "Swift and Saddled," "Lost and Lassoed" and, this April, "Wild and Wrangled."
Distinct with their signature art pop book covers, Sage's series has garnered a cult following. Readers come up to Sage and tell her they wish they could visit Rebel Blue Ranch in real life. Here, cowboy hats and happy endings are a must.
Nina Haines, a New York based content creator who runs the online book club "Sapph-Lit," started riding horses again after reading Sage's books. She lost touch with her childhood sport, but a visit to the literary Rebel Blue Ranch awakened the desire to get back on the saddle.
Now, she rides several times a week and often revisits the genre. Her favorites include "The Ride of Her Life" by Jennifer Dugan and Elsie Silver's "Chestnut Springs" and "Gold Rush Ranch" series. Call it healing the inner horse girl.
"Romance is just a little escapist safe haven for me," Haines says. "I feel very seen and held and understood as a horse girl who has been made fun of her entire life for being a horse girl."
This subgenre of romance has been around for decades, but contemporary takes often bring "more nuance," Olmanson says. Many challenge the traditional dynamics between the hyper-masculine cowboy and the damsel in distress.
"It's been really fun for me to explore a more secure type of masculinity in my romance novels here with this kind of rugged expectation," Sage says. "I'm just very interested in writing green flag men, but also I want to write secure masculinity, a man who is happy to take care of you but knows that's not your whole shtick."
For Haines, the appeal is all about the down-to-Earth characters - and the animals they interact with. She's also hoping for more queer western stories in the future.
"It's the antidote to the tech bro billionaire romance that I despise. I love a man or a woman who doesn't mind getting their hands dirty, who knows what to do around a horse. That is hot to me," she says. "And just the gentleness you have to have with horses specifically, the bond you have to have, that patience, I do see that translating as beneficial to a romantic relationship."
Bloom Books, which publishes Silver's books, is buckling down on cowboy love stories, too.
"Bloom has certainly felt the demand and interest in cowboy romance recently," Shaina Olmanson, senior editor, told USA TODAY in an email. "We're invested, and you can see that reflected on our list with Elsie Silver and our recent announcement that we're bringing Jessica Peterson's 'Lucky River Ranch' series to Bloom this summer."
Alongside their swoony characters, rural romances are also enticing for their atmospheric settings.
Sage, who grew up in Utah on the border of Wyoming (where her books are set), says her Western roots heavily influence the setting of the "Rebel Blue Ranch" books.
"I could never write something where I looked out the window and there wasn't a mountain there. I just love big spaces, I love being outside," Sage says.
Danica Nava, the author of "The Truth According to Ember," is venturing into more cowboy territory with her second novel, "Love is a War Song," out in July. "Love is a War Song" is a love story between a disgraced Muscogee pop star and a cowboy who "couldn't be more different." To her, a good Western romance is about the love story, but it also offers up a space for a larger conversation about identity and community.
"There's so much I could explore in this genre that hasn't been touched on with the Native lens, other than the stereotypes that fed into what people think Native Americans are," Nava, who is an enrolled citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, says. "A lot of that came from Hollywood and the romance genre and the Western bodice rippers from the '80s, '90s and early 2000s. Almost three decades of this, honestly, horrible representation."
As the genre evolves, so does the conversation about Western romances - their impact, parts of society they spotlight and who they may exclude.
Recently, Sage took to Threads to remind readers of the way class and politics intersect with her "Rebel Blue" characters. It's more than just sunset kisses and chivalry - she says she wants to use her writing to spotlight the resources rural communities lack. It's something she wants to do even more of in her future writing, she told USA TODAY.
"Ada's mom is an immigrant and Luke Brooks would have been eligible for government assistance programs because he grew up in poverty," she says. "All of those things are things that I see and experience and inform my worldview, so they go in my books."
Nava wants authors and readers to consider the sometimes painful realities of Western history, especially Black and Indigenous discrimination. The term "cowboy" was originally a derogatory, racist way to refer to Black cowhands. And you can't talk about (much less glamorize) the concept of Manifest Destiny without talking about the harm to Indigenous Americans, including the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the Indian Appropriations Act of 1851 and the forced separation of children.
Nava hopes to see more Western stories from authors of color, noting Marcella Bell and Rebekah Weatherspoon as particularly influential writers in the space. In Nava's upcoming book, "Love is a War Song," there's humor, sex and romance, but there's also an exploration of Native culture. In one scene, characters play a traditional game of stickball and have poignant discussions about Indigenous identity.
"We all deserve to belong on the page, and not as a stereotype," Nava says.
Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, check out her recent articles or tell her what you're reading at [email protected].