Ella Risbridger - In Love with Love
The Persistence and Joy of Romantic Fiction
WithElla Risbridger
In conversation withAnahit Behrooz
On:11th November 2025, 7:00pm - 8:00pm
Attendance options:
We are over the moon that Ella Risbridger will be returning to the bookshop this November for an event to celebrate the publication of her new book, In Love with Love: The Persistence and Joy of Romantic Fiction. Risbridger will be in conversation with fellow author Anahit Behrooz.
This event will take place in the bookshop with an in-person audience, as well as a livestream for attendees watching from home. There will be a signing after the event.
In-person vouchers can be redeemed on the night of the event against a single copy of In Love with Love – we will have a list of attendees with vouchers to be redeemed. Please note that only one voucher can be redeemed per book. Livestream vouchers are valid until the day after the event and can be redeemed on our website against a single copy of In Love with Love.
About In Love with Love:
Cowboys and aliens, dukes and dancers, power dynamics, death and domesticity, vampires and veterans, tradwives and single dads and sisters and small-town politics, private jets and princes and horses, hopes and dreams and fears, and so, so much kissing: this is a love letter to romantic fiction, but it’s also a book about creativity and creation and the job of art in this crazy old world.
Why do we read? Why do we write? What makes some books last forever, and others vanish from memory? What is the point of everything, anything, when everything – especially romantic love – is so fleeting in the grand scheme of things? How do we love when the world is falling apart? And what does it mean that love is the one subject of which we never seem to tire?
Part literary criticism, part investigation, total passion project, In Love with Love is a wild tour from the very beginnings of kissing in books through historic trends, favourite tropes, beloved friends and brand-new loves, from Jane Austen to Jasmine Guillory, Jilly Cooper to Georgette Heyer, from the depths of the ocean to the furthest reaches of the outer galaxy . . .
Please note: Tickets for our events are non-refundable. Professional photography and videography may take place during this event. Thank you for your understanding.
Participants:
Ella Risbridger Author
Ella Risbridger is a writer and editor, whose cookbooks, anthologies, children’s books include The Year of Miracles, Set Me on Fire and The Secret Detectives. Midnight Chicken: & other recipes worth living for was Sunday Times Book of the Year 2019, Guild of Food Writers General Cookbook of the Year, and an Amazon bestseller in both hardback and paperback. She likes poems, cats and gardens.
Anahit Behrooz Chair
Anahit Behrooz is a writer, editor and critic based in Edinburgh. She is the author of BFFs: The Radical Potential of Female Friendship and works as Books Editor and Events Editor at The Skinny. Her writing has appeared in the likes of AnOther Magazine, Little White Lies, gal-dem and Girls on Tops among others.
The venue
The Portobello Bookshop
46 Portobello High Street
Edinburgh
EH15 1DA
Telephone: 0131 629 6756
Website: www.theportobellobookshop.com
Wheelchair Access
We have a ramp at the front of the shop which has a ratio of 1:10 and loading capacity of 300kg, and so should be able to be used by most wheelchair users or those with mobility vehicles. The front doors are fully automated. Our shop interior is designed to allow access throughout for wheelchair users and prams, though please note there is only 700mm wide clearance to access the staff toilet.
Sound
We use a PA system to enhance the audio at our live events. We also have a hearing loop system installed, if you’d like to use our loop system during an event please let us know and we’ll make sure we have it set up and connected to the live audio feed during the event. If you wish to attend an event and require BSL interpretation, please give us a few weeks notice and we’ll do our best to arrange an interpreter.