Knights, sheikhs and billionaire businessmen with drop-dead killer looks languorously rule these pages. Gorgeous women, who make them go weak in their knees, complete the canvas. The obstacles on their way are namesake and before long passion and love seal their lives.
Mills and Boon novels have squeezed tight this age-old formula for over a century and triumphantly gallop forward. The stories, meanwhile, keep their date with contemporary times; protagonists have grown bolder and dare to venture into territories taboo 50 years ago.
The wiry novels typically with a passionate man and woman on the cover entered the Indian market couple of years ago. “Our India operations have been hugely successful and we have doubled our sales. There is a growing appetite (for M&B),” says Clare Somerville, general manager, India, UK and export sales, Harlequin Mills & Boon, on a visit here.
M&B still comes out with 60-70 titles a month. Their database boasts 1300 authors, all women except one, and is published in close to 30 languages.
“We have had a male author,” says Clare, however, the focus is steadfastly on women. “It is quite like why don't men read ‘Cosmopolitan'. There is a social segment, certain consumer groups attracted to Mills and Boon. For young women above 35 years who are busy with families, it is part of their “me time” and we have consumers in younger women between 18 and 35.”
Despite treading along ‘the quest for love' path, Clare says, the M&B brand has given their quintessential romance a contemporary sheen. “We have evolved and it is a social barometer to the changes in society. It is a history of women, their social and sexual behaviour.”
The classic M&B heroine today, she says, “is confident and has a career. They are teachers, bankers and gardeners and also looking to find love.”
From the 2,000 manuscripts they receive a year, “The search is for an individual authoritative voice able to create convincing characters with the interface of sexual and emotional layers. M&B is aspirational and a world of heady romance,” says Clare, about the brand which tell women their perfect man is round the corner.
Though one may tend to believe the archetypal M&B author is middle-aged, Clare is quick to quell the thought. “They are of all ages and from all walks of life; from medical, legal profession, some are ex-teachers, ex-geneticist and home-makers.”
It is women from diverse fields who nourish the M&B repertoire. In the 1950s, Clare says, they had an author who was an air stewardess and wrote about affairs on air — pilots and air stewards, which were “popular of years.”
Meanwhile, an M&B novel by an Indian author with Indian characters should by out by year-end. Milan Vohra's short story “Love Asana”, winner of the search by Mills and Boon to scour for Indian talents will grow into a full-fledged novel.
In its over 100 years history, Clare says, the brand had faced difficult times, during the Depression and World Wars. Yet, she remembers a statement that gives M&B its standing. “During the first World War, there was paper rationing. But the Ministry of Supplies made an exception for Mills and Boon saying women who worked for war efforts needed these books.”
