It was produced by Frank Dukes, Louis Bell, the Monsters and the Strangerz, John Hill, Andrew Watt, and Finneas, among others.

To promote the album, Cabello was set to embark on The Romance Tour, starting with Europe and then North America.

After the release of Cabello's debut album, Camila (2018), Brian Lee and Louis Bell told MTV News that they were already looking ahead to her next project.

Bell said he imagines she will work on her second album during her then-upcoming tour, saying they will send ideas back and forth from April until June when they will finally be able to get into the studio together.

[33] Additionally, much of the album was inspired by Cabello's relationship with Canadian singer Shawn Mendes.

[37] The opening track of the album, "Shameless", is a power pop-punk and pop-rock song about the fear of exploring new love.

[38][39][40] "Living Proof" is a pop song about Cabello's relationship with her lover, expressed through religious imagery.

The song reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100, as well as topping the charts in a record setting 40 countries worldwide.

[63][64][46] "Shameless" reached the top 50 in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Canada, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Taiwan, Scotland, Singapore and Slovakia, and peaked at number 60 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

[74][75] Cabello and DaBaby performed the song on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on December 12, 2019.

[86] The tour was set to go across North America and Europe starting in May 2020,[87] but was later postponed and then cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

[89] Matt Collar of AllMusic said that the album was about "Cabello feeling loved and seen by someone else" and "just as much about her seeing and understanding herself as an artist" while naming the record "compelling.

"[90] Chris Willman of Variety opined that "Romance is a record that "bumps her up a level as an artist, without trying to advance her into maturity too fast.

"[53] Adam White of The Independent considered the album a "marked improvement on the pick'n'mix anonymity of her 2018 debut", adding that while not everything works on the record, "there is an obvious through line connecting the majority of its tracks".

[92] Kitty Empire of The Guardian named the album "giddy, frisky fun but not to the point of nausea.

"[96] Writing for Rolling Stone, Lucas Villa named the album "revelatory" while feeling that Cabello deepened her songwriting on Romance.

She ended her review by calling it "a solid, sexually charged sophomore entry that places growth at center-stage and keeps us wanting more without going limp.

"[97] In a mixed review, Hannah Mylrea of NME stated that the album "shines during these more upbeat, fun moments" but "is less successful when Cabello tries to show the side of romance where you're falling head over heels or doubting a relationship.

"[47] Writing for Pitchfork, Stefanie Fernández said the album "follows the same pristine pop cues" of her debut and "imbues them with a vision about love so universalized it blurs it out of focus".

Fernández felt Romance "succeeds in tracks that capture love's fleeting minutiae", but the "inconsistent" production and "overproduced" songs leave "too much space where Cabello is overshadowed.

"[95] Alexis Petridis of The Guardian deemed the songwriting "so-so" and questioned the production including the "distracting" use of auto-tune "not as a special effect but as a kind of cure-all lotion slathered over every syllable that passes Cabello's lips.

felt the album's "overall overproduction and focus on chasing an earworm makes it impossible to retain the authenticity found on her previous hits" while feeling that it "still relies on a structure that is becoming increasingly irrelevant, which ultimately overshadows many of the album's redeemable moments.

[99] The album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in May 2020, for selling 1,000,000 album-equivalent units.