to wonder who still reads Mills and Boon books

[lostsoulsunited]

I keep seeing them come up on Amazon but I'm surprised they are still being published as they seem so outdated in this day and age - woman meets man, falls hopelessly in love, lives happily ever after.

HighonPot - I've written all my life. Took it more seriously once youngest was a school and now write one/two books a year. Am agented and traditionally published, but it was a long, hard road (and not as lucrative as people would like to think, I also work in a supermarket to pay the bills!).

@bridgetreilly much appreciated!

One had the immortal line that went something like she had the body of a jockey and the sexual sophistication of a hedgehog or maybe I am misremembering

Perhaps the other way around. Body of a hedgehog, sexual sophistication of a jockey. Wasn’t Kieran Fallon reputedly a bit of a goer, particularly with wives of racehorse owners?

I am quite intrigued by the penniless housekeeper one. I might buy it on my kindle so I can read it in secret on the train to work.

I might buy it on my kindle so I can read it in secret on the train to work.

Sod’s law that when you’re reading M&B or a bodice ripper some bugger will be reading over your shoulder.

My neighbour from a few years ago used to write M&B books. She was a lovely lady and died quite suddenly. Wondering if it was @TonytheDog mum! But she'd been widowed a fair few years before she died (and had a lovely little dog!)

years ago my mums friend told us that her brother Francis who lived with his mum and sister never married used to get M and B books delivered to read them himself. i often wonder if many men read them are secret readers!

I’ve never read any Mills and Boon, but am afraid I do like Santa Montefiore, Lucinda Riley, Kate Morton Kate Mosse that sort of thing.

Emma Darcy wrote many M&Bs, I only found a few years ago that they’re actually a husband/wife writing duo using the ED alias.

Why would be 'be afraid' to admit it, Seren? Is there some shame in reading books written by women, for women? Or is it because they are unlikely to win some high-prestige award for 'literary fiction'?

Writers write so people can read. We need to stop pigeonholing romance/M&B/Women's Fiction as unworthy fluff, only suitable for the brains of little women.

but am afraid I do like

Own it.

Yanbu but at the same time theres a large part of me that wants to retreat into an old fashioned world where the tall dark stranger turns out to be a really good guy who's mind-blowing in bed and has eyes for only me

Writers write so people can read. We need to stop pigeonholing romance/M&B/Women's Fiction as unworthy fluff, only suitable for the brains of little women.

Amen.

Besides which, romance is about people and relationships. That's literally the most important thing there is to write about, imo. It's not fluff at all.

The books I write also deal with mental illness, physical disabilities, family estrangement, death....they are not fluffy at ALL.

I read them as a young teen, quite raunchy some of them.
The old dears still buy them on the market, but most are the older ones.

There’s a reviewer on Good Reads (and formerly on Amazon Books) who does hilarious reviews of M&Bs. She has all thousands upon thousands at her home, every book that was published from the beginning until like late 90s. I hope they will go in a museum one day.

I love historical romances, read them since I was about 12 and I’m now in my 30s. It’s just complete brain relaxation, I’m not ashamed of it, my friends laugh and then ask to borrow them. Of course these days they’re all on my kindle. Beyond mills and boon there’s a whole world of romance out there.

Nora Roberts is one of my favourite authors and she writes lots of M&B as well as stand alone romantic thrillers/suspense and another series about a cop. Mum bought me a Christmas book that I thoroughly enjoyed and I only discovered after that it was a mills and boon. Lovely escapism

I read M&B as a teenager, because someone accused me of having read too many. I hadn't ever read one, and wasn't quite sure how insulted to be.

I had a Saturday job in the library. Genre fiction (romance, crime, westerns, fantasy) didn't have to be shelved alphabetically, just on their particular genre shelves. Romance was mostly M&B, in plastic library covers that paperbacks got. One morning, I had an armful to move from the "just returned" trolley to the shelf. I needed to make a little more space on the shelf to get them all on, so I shoved the existing books to get them to stand upright... and watched an entire shelf of M&B's cascade onto the carpet...

Obviously this should have been the point at which a helpful dashing stranger came to assist, but I had to pick them all up myself.

Radio 4's 09:45 book reading this week is Why Women Read Fiction by Helen Taylor.

I don’t read them now, because I’m addicted to books about tea shops, seaside and villages (basically the same premise as M&B, and often found in The Works 3 for £5), but before the popularity of so called chick lit fiction, and after I grew out of Sweet Dreams, Sweet Valley High, and Cheerleaders books, I read them constantly. I like medical, veterinary and cowboy ones, but nothing historical. Actually I think Debbie Macomber books might be M&B, if so, then I do still read them.

I HATE peoples who are snobbish about books. I’m well educated, but confident enough to choose to read whatever I like. People should do more of what makes them happy, and not so much judging other people’s taste.

@UnitedRoad I agree, I read books from many genres including romance, chick lit, horror, thriller, domestic thriller and even children's books sometimes and I'm not ashamed or embarrassed about it. People reading is a good thing and I don't judge what they choose to read.

I work on a library and these yokes are burning a hole in the carpet with the comings and goings. And i the subject of the comings...steam. The Spanish Pirate's Pregnant Bride. And. The Greek Tycoons Hostage. Also. The Italian Pirate's Pregnant Bride. Kind of hooked up to the 50 shades bandwagon and hasnt stopped.
The same plots done over and over. Mostly borrowed by ladies sort of over 60.
One customer reads the most gory true crime and she looks like my nana. The sort of stuff you read with all the door bolted andbtheblughts on.
You never can tell.

I love them, due to some things that happened in my early twenties, I love the happy ending, oh and if your husband's did what the hero's do to their ladies, you would never leave the house.....

I do

Pure escapism and a quick read with a guaranteed happy ending (no pun intended)!

These days the women are all super successful, gorgeous and confident. I do miss the old days when the men were hugely successful and the women were often plain Jane secretaries who were swept off their feet (there - that’s my feminist credentials ruined .

I read a few trying to improve my sex scenes I write. Some of them were cringe. Then I tried to write my own original stuff, then I realised sex between human and a humanoid alien was gonna be tough.

Thanks to this thread, I’ve just bought one for the Kindle.

My mum used to read them and I borrowed quite a few as a teenager. They were brilliant escapism and I could do with that right now.