Val’s is essentially an answer to my own desire for a dating app for romances in books. As someone who has a very strong preference on what romance novel tropes I want to read, I always want that “recommended for you” section that’s available on Netflix, but for romance tropes in books. If you don’t know, tropes are basically those really specific storylines that seem to work their way into a majority of romances, like enemies to lovers, royalty, unrequited love, so Val’s bypasses the typical genre sort and classifies books based on their tropes.

Users can go on blind dates, where they select different characteristics like preferred tropes, length, and maturity level, and a Val’s matchmaker, who are certified bookworms essentially, can recommend a book based on the requests. Val’s also partners with several publishers and authors to get permission to provide chapter one speed dates, where users can preview the first chapter of five books before they commit to that relationship.