Rhett Butler's peopleThe publishing house responsible for those pieces of pink perfection, Mills & Boon novels,  is 100 this year and what better time to celebrate  the phenomenon than around Valentine’s Day? 200 million Mills & Boon books are sold world-wide every year but there still seems to be certain snobbery about them. Is it because they are written mostly by women for women? Is it because they are relatively cheap to buy? Who knows and who cares, devoted readers would say, just let me read 70 or 80 or 90 or 100 or more a year.

Perhaps it’s snobbery that encourages the seemingly very common belief that anyone can write a Mills & Boon romance. I’ve lost count of the number of women of my acquaintance who claim they’ve never read one but are absolutely sure they could in fact write one and as soon as they get the time that’s just what they’re going to do. It simply cannot be that easy but Mills and Boon do try to help by providing what looks like very helpful advice, listed under Aspiring Authors, from their website, http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/

I myself have never read a Mills & Boon nor do I kid myself I could write one but I do have a few guilty pleasures in the romantic read department. Gone with the wind is probably the guiltiest, it was in my high school library and I was absolutely rivetted by it when I read it in the late ’60s.  Horrifying even then really, but fiddle-dee-dee I just can’t help myself. There must be some life left in it yet, as an authorised ’sequel’,  Rhett Butler’s people , has just come out to very mixed reviews.

What else would be on the list? Wuthering heights and Jane Eyre of course, Sense and sensibility and Margaret Mahy’s The changeover.