Latest news with #MillsAndBoon
BBC News
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
'Not just smut': Why it's happily ever after for romance books
Author Bea Fitzgerald, 28, says she benefitted from this commercial shift, selling her young adult fantasy rom-com Girl Goddess Queen at the peak of the romance boom. "That sort of space opening up is what allowed me to move into the market," she says. Bea previously worked in publishing, and recalls seeing "a lot of books that could have been published as romance [instead] published in other literary genres because they think that it will not appeal to a certain type of audience". The genre is nothing new, she quips, having long been "championed" by publishers such as Mills & Boon. The difference now is that young people "like things really unapologetically". "They won't just read a romance, they'll go shout about it online, and then they'll go to a romance convention, and they'll talk to their friends about it." While the community has grown, Bea thinks critical appraisal of the genre is still lacking. "Do we see broadsheets reviewing romance books? No. And they are just as important, literary books." Bea believes this is both because "the good majority" of the readers are women, and simply because the stories are happy. "It goes in line with this sort of academic elitism that for something to be serious, it has to be a Shakespearean tragedy," she says. "Whereas if it's happy, it's not serious, it hasn't got literary merit. It obviously does - of course it does."
Yahoo
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Martine Rose Spring 2026: Honey, I Shrunk the Clothes
Martine Rose moved to more elegant surroundings this season, with a set design resembling a haute couture salon decorated with wooden chairs and white curtains with ruffles that covered the walls and columns inside the St. Marylebone Jobcentre in London. 'I really wanted the models to enjoy posing and to have fun and for it to be charming because people are charming, aren't they?' said Rose, who worked with street-cast models for her show on Saturday. More from WWD Miu Miu Takes Over London for a Full Day of Celebrations Jewelry Brand Vickisarge Gets the Val Garland Makeover Heather Kaminetsky Taps Company Veterans for New Net-a-porter Team She swapped her signature oversized silhouettes for shrunken, cinched pieces that had an undertone of awkwardness. Somehow it was still sexy, in the vein of Mills & Boon bodice-ripper romance novels. Her characters, some of whom sported long Brian May-esque wigs, wore cropped leather jackets with biker pants; denim shorts with the pockets hanging out, and dresses with a faded tartan pattern. There were two-in-one trousers with the top half resembling jodhpurs and the bottom nodding to soccer socks, and apron skirts with ruffles that matched the set design. Rose said the collection was about inexplicable beauty. 'You don't know why you find something beautiful or sexy, but you just do,' said the designer. 'I wanted people to be sort of swept up in a bit of a dream, but [the designs] are still real. It's a sort of push and pull,' she said. As always, Rose swung the spotlight on the local community. One floor down from the show space, the designer set up a street market and invited a handful of locals to take a corner and sell their T-shirts, magazines, antiques and accessories. 'The show space was an opportunity to celebrate all of the creative people in London and everyone that contributes to the cultural life and dynamism of London — and that needs celebrating,' said Rose. After the show, guests including Romy from band The xx and Simone Rocha roamed around the market, which also had a bar and an area serving pizza. Launch Gallery: Martine Rose Spring 2026 Ready-to-Wear Collection Best of WWD Windowsen RTW Spring 2022 Louis Shengtao Chen RTW Spring 2022 Vegan Fashion Week Returns to L.A. With Nous Etudions, Vegan Tiger on the Runway
News.com.au
18-05-2025
- Business
- News.com.au
Erotic trend sweeping posh suburbs as spicy fantasy books take over TikTok
Stepping into bookshop Romancing the Novel in Sydney's affluent eastern suburbs, one might think they've walked directly into a fictional world. It's only been nine months since the glass-panelled door swung open on the two-storey bookshop in Paddington, but romance novels have been flying off its painted pink shelves 'like hot-cakes'. Despite a Mills & Boon book being purchased every four seconds across the world, and the 50 Shades trilogy selling over 150m copies, owner Scarlett Hopper recognised an untapped market that was begging for attention. 'I noticed a bit of a hole in the market (over) the last few years,' she told NewsWire. 'America was getting a lot of romance bookstores, but Australia didn't have as many.' Ms Hopper, a self-published author, admitted that she 'eats, sleeps and dreams' of romance novels, but decided to take the plunge and open her own bookshop after growing impatient waiting for one to open nearby. 'I've just been waiting for Sydney to get (its own romance bookstore), and when it never came, I felt like this could be my moment,' she said. 'I just woke up one morning and I was like, 'I'm gonna do this'. And I did, and it's been amazing.' Surrounded by cafes and restaurants in Sydney's swanky inner suburbs, Romancing the Novel doesn't appear like any run-of-the-mill bookshop. With its soft pink walls, flowers adorning the bookshelves, literature references hanging in ornate frames and plush velvet chairs nestled into cosy corners, it's a place where readers can relax and escape the world for a few hours. 'It's like a warm hug, as dumb as that sounds,' Ms Hopper laughed. 'It's a safe space … it's very calm.' The bookshop's welcoming and romantic aesthetic was hand-curated down to a tee, she said, and has ushered in a community of like-minded people who want to explore a world of romance from a mix of traditional and self-published indie authors. 'Indie authors are the backbone of romance novels,' she told NewsWire. 'And the beauty of the indie bookstores, especially the romance ones, is most of the time we're gonna have a huge focus on indie novels.' Skeptics warned Ms Hopper that bookshops were a 'dying breed', but she was determined to prove them wrong with her Paddington store, which opened its doors in September last year. 'I think now more than ever, we can see that is so not true,' she said. Behemoth online retailers like Amazon quickly gobbled up many independent bookshops since launching in Australia, with the number of bookshops dropping from 2,879 in 2013 to 1,457 a decade later, but genre-specific shops like Romancing the Novel remain a staple for the community. 'People want to support small business,' she said. 'Also, with (retailers like) Amazon, there's not a lot of quality control. Whereas in a bookstore, people love to pick out specific books … some readers have already read the book on their Kindle, and they want it for what they call a 'trophy' to have on their shelves.' Some of the best-selling genres in the Paddington bookshop include small-town romance and dark romance, which 'has been having its moment'. That's not to say she hasn't been faced with challenges, with some passers-by making remarks and suggestions her shop 'would be closed in a few months … especially in such an expensive suburb like Paddington', but she predicts more romance-focused bookshops to open across the country. 'The joke's on them because romance is (one of) the top-selling genres of fiction … and I know the store speaks for itself.' Although the love for romance books have been a favourite among majority female readers for centuries, with the first reference to the genre tracing back to Shakespeare's 1596 play A Midsummer Night's Dream, romance novels have experienced a renaissance thanks to apps like TikTok, which is slowly shedding the stigma that once cast a shadow over the genre. 'Back in the day these types of novels were the ones you read behind closed doors, but it's becoming common for women to be open about their tastes, perhaps even feeling confident reading this type of book on a bus,' clinical psychologist Maria Elena Lukeides told NewsWire. 'It feels like social media has given a voice to so many people and highlighted an intense interest this specific niche. Social media has also allowed people to feel as if they are a part of a borderless book club. Inclusive, non-judgemental and highly engaging.' Several misconceptions fuel the flames of romance novel stigma, Dr Lukeides said, including accusations of the books being 'anti-feminist', 'unrealistic' and 'all about sex'. 'The reality is, many of them are quite PG or focus primarily on emotional intimacy and relationship development,' she told NewsWire. 'The idea that romance novels lead to unrealistic expectations is also sort of a myth because many people are able to distinguish fiction from real life.' For Ms Hopper, the stigma stems from 'ignorance' and desire to 'discredit' a genre dominated by women. 'People love to yuck on other people's yum,' she said. 'I think we're kind of over trying to have to make excuses for it. 'We're pretty proud; we're going to stand on our two feet and scream it from the rooftops.'
