Doreen Watt's Canberra home is heaving and sighing with Mills and Boon.
The Weetangera grandmother has 44,000 of the romance novels spread across the two-storey house she shares with husband, Jim.
Their three kids are long grown up, so the books are neatly stacked in the third and fourth bedrooms, down the hallway and into the lounge room.
But that's just the paperbacks.
"I have 3000 hardback Mills and Boons in the garage," Doreen says, happily.
Jim has never been tempted to pick up one of the books but fully supports Doreen's passion for collecting Mills and Boon.
"However, his greatest fear is that the floorboards will one day give way under the weight," she says, with a giggle.
Mills and Boon, a byword for romance, is this year celebrating 50 years in Australia.
Gerald Mills and Charles Boon launched the company in 1908 in London, as a general fiction publisher, turning out books about everything from travel to craft.
In 1971, the Boon family signalled its desire to sell the Mills and Boon business and Harlequin became the parent company. Mills and Boon Australia, established in 1974, was the group's first foray outside Britain or North America.
Mills and Boon romance novels remain mega-popular, with a book sold every two seconds worldwide. Each month Mills and Boon publish more than 80 stories in print, even more as e-books, across 12 different categories.
Among the most voracious of their readers is Doreen who remembers just how she became a Mills and Boon fan - in 1979 to be exact.
"I saw a movie in Canberra called Leopard in the Snow and noticed at the end, in the credits, it said 'Mills and Boon book' so I decided, 'I've got to read that'," she says.
"So I went looking for it at all the second-hand book shops and it took a couple of years but I finally found a copy of it. I was hooked."
Doreen was soon reading five or six Mills and Boons books a week.
"The books had colourful covers with seductive titles and they were short enough to read in a day or two," she says.
"The range of stories varied from desert sheikhs, young ladies left orphaned, nasty bosses to mistaken compromising situations, unfaithful fiancee and Cinderella types."
The importance of the happy ending
Doreen wanted a good story but no surprises at the end.
"I just love the way Mills and Boons always have a happy ending," she says.
"There might be lots of conflict along the way, but in the end, they always end up together and happy."
Mills and Boon was also known for its chaste romances. The first book detailing a pregnancy was not published until the 1960s.
"Back then, Mills and Boon had a strict guideline for writers and sex scenes were not allowed in the stories," Doreen says.
"When the couple finally married, you were left at the bedroom door and your own imagination could take over."
But things have gotten a little racier over the years. The top-selling series line became "Sexy", which is now called "Modern".
"Of late, I am noticing more and more stories are quite explicit regarding the sex scenes," Doreen says.
"I guess because I have been there, done that, I tend to skip over those parts and get to the conflicts and resolutions and happy endings.
"I dare say, if I was younger, I would lap those scenes up for the spice it adds to the story."
Her favourite Mills and Boons now are the ones that take her back in history. "I love the manners of those times," she says.
Over the years, Doreen progressed from fan to unofficial archivist for Mills and Boon, determined to find as many titles as she could.
"It got to the stage where I couldn't find much more in Canberra," she says.
"At that stage, I had a VW campervan, so I drove around the countryside for three, four, five days at a time. I'd go to one town, I'd go to the information desk - 'Where's your second-hand book shops and where's your op shops?'
"I went all around, found what I wanted and at the end of the day, I'd find a caravan park, plug in and stay in the van. It was great fun."
Doreen also meticulously catalogued every Australia and UK edition of Mills and Boon from 1909 to 2000. Her collection was an important resource for Mills and Boon.
"In the old days, if they wanted to republish something, they would ask me if I had a copy and I'd send it up to them and they could photocopy each page and then reprint it," she says.
"Now with digital, it's not needed."
Her collection was aided by the expertise of husband Jim, who used to work for IBM.
"He wrote me a computer program where I can keep a list of [all my] books, which was very handy," she says.
'Romances are joy-making'
Adding to Doreen's list of must-reads is Canberra author Justine Lewis, who has written seven Mills and Boon romances.
"I love reading and writing romance novels. I think they're joy-making. They're joyful, they're happy and I just love love stories," she says.
Justine said the first book she published with Mills and Boon was "pretty special". Called Billionaire's Snowbound Marriage Reunion, it's about a woman snowbound in her cabin getaway with her ex-billionaire husband, the couple rediscovering their original connection.
Justine says it's a misconception that all Mills and Boon are the same.
"I think people follow different authors because they like that author's particular voice," she says.
"I don't think it's formulaic. I think if it was formulaic, then the readers would stop reading it. They would get pretty bored.
"And the fact they all have a happy ending, that doesn't make a formula, that's just the rule of the genre. All genres have rules. Crime novels end with the crime being solved."
And writing a successful Mills and Boon romance is not as easy as just reading one and trying to copy the style.
"It's really not how it works. You have to love it," Justine says.
"You have to believe in the happy ending and you have to believe that the couple will have a happy ending, or else the readers aren't going to."
A public servant by day, the mum-of-two has written 14 romances, seven for Mills and Boon. She squeezes the writing into her already busy day.
"I write [in the car] when my kids are at soccer training ... There are very few other distractions, if I put my phone away," she says.
"And I have a lovely online Sunday morning writers' group which is quite a productive time because the rest of the world is asleep. We all get there by eight o'clock in the morning with our cups of tea and say 'Hi' online and then write for 45 minutes. Touch base with one another and then do another 45. It's other writers in Canberra and a few other places around Australia."
Justine, who lives in Ainslie, has another special connection to Mills and Boon. She's 50 - just like the Australian arm of the romance behemoth.
"1974 was a great year," she says, with a laugh.
And she appreciates being part of something with such a long history and tradition.
"It's really exciting to have seen it lasted so long and still going strong. I'm really proud to be a part of it," Justine says.
A new generation of romance fans
Mills and Boon is now an imprint of Harlequin Enterprises, a division of HarperCollins Publishers Australia.
Mills and Boon Australian publisher Kita Kemp said the 50th anniversary filled her with "immense pride and excitement".
"This milestone is a testament to the enduring popularity of our brand and the love that readers have for our stories," she says.
"Looking back on the past 50 years, we have published countless romance novels that have captured the hearts of readers around the world. We have evolved with the times, embracing new technologies and expanding our reach to new audiences.
"But at our core, we remain committed to delivering the same high-quality, emotionally satisfying stories that have made us a beloved brand for half a century.
"As we look to the future, we hope to inspire a new generation of romance fans and continue to be a source of comfort and joy to all our readers.
"Here's to the next 50 years of Mills and Boon."
Mills and Boon Fun Facts
- Mills and Boon is in the English Oxford dictionary.
- Mills and Boon novels are published in more than 150 countries and six continents, in more than 30 languages.
- When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, staff from the West German office handed out 750,000 free copies to women from East Germany.
- Arrows from the Dark by Sophie Cole was M&B's first ever novel, published in 1909.
- The first book published in Australia was in 1974.
- There have been 50 million sales in print and digital in Australia and New Zealand.
- The top-selling series line is Sexy, which is now called Modern.
- Medical is the longest running series.
- There are 28 current Australian and New Zealand Mills and Boon authors.
- The first Australian and New Zealand authors to be published in 1974 when Mills and Boon launched in Australia were Joyce Dingwell, Margaret Way, Gloria Bevan and Essie Summers.
- Mills and Boon 50th Anniversary Collection: Outback Nurse (Medical), Reunion in Marriage (Modern), Guarded Secrets (Suspense), Cowboy by Heart (Western), Mills & Boon, RRP $14.99 each. Available in bookstores and at millsandboon.com.au
