Mills & Boon: Love between the covers

Mar 20 2008 by Emma Pinch, Liverpool Daily Post

“A man’s fantasies are usually much more visual, it’s Britney Spears on MTV; women are much more imaginative,” she explains.

“Women’s are about reclaiming their own love, about what it meant to be young and in love, where possibility is limitless and you never have to wait for a train because a private jet awaits.”

Specific fantasies are colour coded into 12 genres.

The pastel pink Romance line is anchored in classic M&B territory where sex is never directly alluded to. In Modern Romance, it’s very definitely on the agenda.

“The days where the bedroom door shuts and the rest is entirely left to the reader’s imagination is a tag left over from 30 years ago,” says India.

“The sexual relationship is something that readers expect to find and enjoy reading, and I’m not shy of writing it. It’s conventional sex though, so what I like to do is find unusual situations which provoke a bit of interest.”

Heroines have also transformed.

They can, as the Americans delicately say, be carrying a little too much body for their clothes, have freckles, drink beer, be older women and single mothers (although ideally not all at once), and they can have almost any job.

The heroine in The Italian’s Captive Virgin is a pierced eco-warrior – albeit also an aristocrat who’ll do anything to save her French chateau from a devilishly handsome property developer.

But Swampy types need not apply for the hero role here. In time honoured fashion he is usually Greek or Italian – they also do a lively line in Arabic sheikhs – they are tall, never follically challenged, and unnervingly masterful.

“The modern heroes are very, very powerful, very alpha male and always very wealthy,” affirms India. “You never get a hero who is not a millionaire.

“And he also has to be above reproach, which is definitely quite escapist. He can’t have a criminal past or a string of ex wives.”

Also resolutely unevolved is Mills and Boon’s fondness for heroines being coerced and dominated, much to the despair of feminists.

Last year’s publications include The Greek Tycoon's Unwilling Wife; The Desert Sheikh's Captive Wife and Surrender to the Sheikh.

“You can laugh at the title of books like The Italian’s Captive Virgin but it’s a selling process so it contains all the hooks – women love Mediterranean heroes and want her to be a virgin because it reminds them of their first love,” explains India.

“Lots of readers find the forced proximity thing a really exciting prospect, and the suggestion of blackmail or force is something that lots of readers are turned off by but lots really like in the title. Readers absolutely love this,” she nods.

Each 50,000 word book takes India about four months to complete.

“People are snobbish about Mills & Boon but the sales speak for themselves,” she says.

“They’re written for women, by women and are actually quite empowering. It’s the perfect modern job.”

For more information on India Grey go to www.indiagrey.com