In almost every book, the heroine will need the hero’s help in some way.
Lord Mills-&-Boon isn’t what most women truly want: he is a comforting fantasy.
I can hardly suppress my own hysteria: although perhaps mine is more in the spirit of Stella Gibbons (author of Cold Comfort Farm), who once told Mills & Boon writer Hugh Walpole: ‘Your books have given me . . . joy.
Sarah Ferguson, a woman whom you’d have thought might have had enough of masterful aristocrats and creepy billionaires, has penned Her Heart For A Compass (assisted by veteran Mills & Boon writer Marguerite Kaye).
Even 50 years ago, the publishers were introducing new settings and more modern heroes to loom over the heroines and crush them to their manly chests: millionaires, CEOs and doctors (one of this month’s titles is Marrying Dr Maverick).
