Mills and Boon

[MissyP1895]

Hi

Does anyone secretly really enjoy Mills and Boon novels? Everyone says they're really rubbish but my friend Bunny literally made me sit down and read one in front of her as she's been saying they're good and I've been like, no never! And then she absolutely forced me to read the first chapter and now I'm hooked. I feel embarrassed because I like them so much! Does anyone else get that?! I have to hide them in my handbag on the train to work as I feel as conspicuous as if I were reading 50 Shades of Grey. I feel like everyone is looking (although I actually quite like having it in my bag knowing that they don't know I have it).

But they're just so romantic, I can't help getting swept away.

Have any of you read any - what would you recommend? I am a particular fan of the period ones. Particularly "Wicked Rake, Defiant Mistress" and "The Marriage Wager".

What are you favourites? I would love to swap tips.

I will confess to a secret Mills and Boon habit, though only for the older ones. My favourite two writers are Helen Brooks and Catherine George. I like the way they create romantic tension without too much sexual description. I must admit that the titles put me off the new ones. I haven't tried any of the period ones, so couldn't comment on those.

I used to tell girls that everything I knew about women I learned from the pages of Mills & Boon. As a teenager I devoured them; the twists, the turns, the sex scenes so much more satisfying than the overwrought efforts in what was being pushed on me as proper literature. Dark Obsession, Woman of Honour, A First Time for Everything.
After reading I’d cut them up with scissors, select the most salacious parts and turn them into Valentine’s cards. Regardless of the time of year I’d hand them out freely.
I became one of the heroes from the novels, broad chested and scowling yet kind under it all. The success I had then outstrips anything I could dream of now. When I take a woman out I find this isn’t what they want at all. Things have changed.
I’m looking for a book to re-learn from, perhaps even a body of work. I fear Mills & Boon has led me astray for too many years.

I pick up her hand and kiss each perfect pink knuckle. The warmth of my lips on her skin fractures her breathing. I sense her stomach clench hard as my hot eyes meet hers. Her eyes hot too, burning.
All this before I’ve said a word.
Her heart skips several necessary beats and her breath catches again, catches at feelings she hasn’t felt for years. She decides that tonight she’ll take a few risks.
Then I speak, ask if she’d like to sit. She hears the lack of wildness in my voice, the essential goodness. Her heart wilts, goes quiet.
“Oh,” she says.

You wouldn't be doing some covert research for M&B would you? What with you never having posted on MN before ...

i used to adore m&b when I was a kid and wanted to write then when I grew up
unfortunately by 12 I realised that there was a m&b formula and that it was simply too formulaic for me to aspire to

the are retro hilarious

Hi BIWI I'm not doing covert research for Mills and Boon. I've only recently joined mumsnet!

Why EarnestOrphan79 you should write some yourself! blushes Have you ever tried?
I did once have a go at a romantic novel but embarrassingly I lost it (true story, i half hope it was never found). pre-computer days you must understand.

RonaldMCD you are definitely right there is definitely a formula to them but then I wonder if that is what sort of makes them satisfying? like in a rom com when you know the couple will get together from the beginning, but you still want to see it happen.

Maybe though they appeal to me as I have been single for so long! I don't exactly think they are real as I know they are only silly fiction but there is something in them that i find really freeing.

(you're not a man are you, earnest?!)

i think there was a playwright called Joe Orton who used to cut up library books with the naughty bits.

do you think women don't want good old romance any more? maybe you're right Campaspe and the modern ones are too racy

Alas I'm a man, yes I am. A father also though, hence here.

That may be the one thing I have in fact never lied about.

MissyP1895 - you didn't perchance lose your novel in an ultra-stylish handbag did you? If so, rather randomly, I might have some wild and happy news on that front.

To your question on whether I have tried writing a Mills & Boon - no, I have not. I try my utmost to live. Writing, for me anyway, is simply not living. Reading, however, is an entirely different matter.

What happy news could you have for me?! Ha you don't even know my name!

The novel i wrote got lost on a train years ago (I say got lost, i forgot it in the luggage rack). they do say though don't they that everyone's got a novel in you, maybe i should have a second shot seeing as I can't find the first.

I think I was more wild in my youth though, probably more like Wicked Rake, now it might be more like Harry potter were I to sit down and put pen to paper. or finger to keyboard!?

I'll tell you what tho, the herione's name in my novel was Cecily. i always liked that for a girl.

A decade or a few days ago? I find it hard to recall. My brain plays many tricks as I rummage about its capaciousness in search of memories. But this much is vivid: a young woman called Cecily, fresh as daisies and cream, saucy as plums and chillis, her story suffusing me with shame and arousal, found in an elegant black and white tote bag I found in my carriage and intended really i did to take to Lost Property. Peeped inside in search of identification and found a manuscript, stack of typed A4 in a brown padded envelope. The expression I believe is it blew my mind I fear till Cecily and I blurred and she and I were hysterical one. Stuffed the memory away like the pages into the dark of the bag and snapped it shut. Oh my.
At nights I dream of the maws of that handbag reopening, wake sweaty and burbling. And keep snapped tight mostly. Till this, National Handbag Day (USA) when Mister Earnest my hard smoking handbag purveyor, astounds me with rumours of an author. Bags and bags of emotion erupting. Good lord. What do we keep in this dark locked space so close at hand, so easy to hide things in so speedy to reach into and reveal?
What's locked up in yours?

LBracknell - I must have that manuscript. I am prepared to pay handsomely for it, in handbags if necessary. What's your price?

I download mine onto the kindle - then pretend I'm reading something worthy

Ah if there was such a wonder as a downloadable handbag then I might be happy! I memorise the contents of each of mine and hide them in the growing cloud of my own unknowing. The contents of that novel too are memorised - I am that book. Though perhaps a somewhat battered secondhand paperback copy with dog eared pages the colour of tea bags, feathered, flecked, the words fading. We like to think we consume books and keep them forever whereas actually they pass through us like tea and cucumber sandwiches. We retain the nutritious bits, expel the unpleasant, forget the rest utterly. A husk sits on our shelf, a crumb in the innards of our digital devices.. I can't recall where the actual manuscript is - but will rummage about in my capacious forgetfulness and see what I discover. Handsomely you say!? In handbags you say! O my!

I tried valiantly to write one with the help of MN once. 'Twas so difficult I ended it two chapters early by killing both the main characters in a freak oak tree accident.

I get them out of the library, only read the raunchy ones and I cannot be doing with the likes of Helen Brooks and Catherine George - not raunchy enough. They're my Friday evening with a glass of wine fodder and I don't mind admitting it either.

This thread is brilliant. Could we write an MN M&B?

I thought they were great when I was about 12-13. I tried to pick one up recently for old time's sake but couldn't get through the syrupy descriptive language. "Rourke's greased biceps flashed in the sun, catching Cecily's eye. She gasped as he leaned back against the fence, his manhood straining against the faded denim jeans that hugged his steely contours blah blah"

I used to read them, secretly off course. I don't have a favorite author, I went by the name and the description in the back. Basically I like those which had strong willed women and the age old love-hate formula.

I don't write for M&B but it's incredibly difficult to get a deal with them; the competition is global and many writers try for years. It's much, much,mouch more difficult to write a romance, especially one for M&B, than you could ever imagine.

Sorry for the typo. That's probably why I'd never get a deal with them! Mind you a book of mine, they turned down, did go on to be published and turned into a TV movie and paid for my dd's education. :)

You have a friend called bunny? -misses point-