The romantic-fiction house claims its new Modern Girl’s Guides are ‘funny, feisty and feminist’. But it’s more Five go Gluten Free than The Second Sex Mills & Boon is best known for what is euphemistically described as “escapist fiction for women”, a genre it first embraced in the 1930s. The company is reported to account for almost three-quarters of sales of romantic fiction in the UK. In 2008, a Mills & Boon paperback was sold in a UK bookshop on average every 6.6 seconds. However, far from being universally beloved, Mills & Boon novels have been attacked by the feminist movement over the years for everything from misogyny and reinforcing gender stereotypes to repackaging rape as romance. Titles from the past decade have included The Greek Tycoon’s Unwilling Wife and The Billionaire’s Captive Bride. The recent title A Mistletoe Kiss With the Boss tells the story of a woman whose superior demands a date as a condition of making an investment in her charity. Hardly the stuff of feminist fairytale. Continue reading...
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