First published on Fri 15 Jan 2021 09.03 EST
It is easy to mock a fantasy world of personal assistants taming playboy princes, nurses unlocking the passions of surly surgeons, or chambermaids bedding brooding billionaires. Less easy to mock is the wild and continuing popularity of Mills & Boon when one of its romances is sold every 10 seconds in the UK.
Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, was this week revealed as the latest recruit to the publishers’ roster of authors, with a novel loosely based on the passions of her great-great-aunt, Lady Margaret Montagu Douglas Scott.
She joins a publishing institution, founded in 1908, which releases more than 700 new titles every year and accounts for 16% of the UK’s romance fiction market.