Poetry and Harliquin

Mills and Boon is the British arm of Harlequin Romance who are a Canadian company.

At this particular branch of a nationwide newsagent you can pick up a little John Keats along with a copy of this month's read, Lucy King's Propositioned by the Billionaire. When I was keeping Harlequin Romances under my pillow, no one was ever propositioned by anything more than a millionaire. Clearly, I've been keeping my standards too low. 

These folks have recently tried to nudge their way into part of the Harlequin market share with books which are a bit more highbrow and a bit racier. But they haven't yet earned themselves their own section, so they continue to be shelved with the rest of the fiction section. There's been a lot of discussion amongst my writer friends about whether or not it's possible to earn more writing these than it is to work as an hourly paid (adjunct) lecturer. Neither career approach carries benefits, but one of them does include time to work on our snootier writing.

Before you jump to any conclusions, remember that these books sell. They get read. And then they disappear again. And given the lack of realistic sex education in the States, they're probably convincing a whole new generation of girls that orgasms are possible, and they shouldn't settle for faking it.