Feeling the love: Winnipeg author's romance novel read 130M times online

A Winnipeg author said she has no idea how her online novel was read 130 million times, and she's at a loss for words knowing physical copies of her book will be available on store shelves this fall.

Isabelle Ronin found out recently her romance novel Chasing Red will be published, after being hosted on the online user-generated storytelling site Wattpad.

A counter on the e-book's Wattpad page showed it had been read 131 million times as of Tuesday.

"I'm speechless … it's crazy," Ronin said of the book's success.

Chasing Red is about a straight-laced college student who gets kicked out of her apartment and finds the only person willing to help her is the school jock.

"Crazy things happen after that," said Ronin.

The young author finished writing the novel exactly one year ago, on Valentine's Day 2016. She wrote it while juggling college classes and a part-time job.

Ronin said she'd post a chapter at a time and get feedback as she was writing the novel on Wattpad, an app and website that lets authors post and share their work for free.

"It's a great way for writers and readers to interact," she said. "It's like having a thousand editors at the same time."

She said the immediate feedback from readers pushed her to keep writing and finish the story.

The first volume of Chasing Red will be on bookshelves in September, with a second volume to follow in November.