"He'd never had to make more than the minimal effort to get a woman into his bed"

As if to disprove their most fundamental tenet last week Harlequin Mills & Boon left one billionaire owner for another, as News Corporation bought the publisher from Torstar in a deal worth $415 million. The world's foremost purveyor of romance fiction will now operate as a division of HarperCollins. This news has been met with numerous emotional reactions ranging from the mildly concerned to the entirely disinterested. Corporate take-overs and corporate mergers are popular at present in the publishing industry, and News Corp. has been eager to expand its portfolio of companies, having already toyed with amalgamating with the likes of Hachette, Pan Macmillan and Simon & Schuster. For an idealistic money-maker such as Harlequin, Torstar was no longer the tycoon to keep them in finery. The furtive glances and pebbled nipples of Rupert Murdoch proved too good to turn down. Whereas Torstar has lost the brightness in it eyes and a huge amount of money in recent times, News Corp. is powerful, wealthy, attractive and knows what it is doing when it comes to merging.

There are certain obstacles, however, standing in the way of a happy coupling. News Corp. has been known to be controlling, emotionally distant and megalomaniacal, even going so far as to listen to mobile phone messages without permission. Might it be that they love too much? Whatever, say Mills & Boon, perhaps a little petulantly, those things that took place in the past took place in the past and should not been considered relevant to predicting the future. Critics don't know News Corp. like Harlequin knows News Corp.. They have changed and this time will be different. Through the gentle embrace of Mills & Boon and their tales of true love, innocence and NASCAR News Corporation will soon open their hearts as easily as they open their wallets.

For Murdoch's tyrannical empire, who hope to soon announce the ownership of everything, their motivation for the take-over is obvious. Mills & Boon will become a key piece of their vertical and horizontal strategy. As Forbes Magazine simply explains, HarperCollins wishes to, 'develop vertical niches within publishing to give it economies of scale when marketing to audiences.' Naturally, Harlequin is no longer as young and flexible as they once were, but they remain an established name in the genre, and are hugely successful overseas, whereas HarperCollins are not. Despite this, Mills & Boon have been struggling financially, in the relative terms of a business worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Revenues have fallen steadily over the past four years, down almost $100million since 2009. Between 2007 and 2013, mass market print sales declined from $1.1 billion to $373.1 million. In 2013, their CEO, Craig Swinwood, blamed lower sales on book pricing and self-publishing. The electronic market, which Harlequin initially embraced, has negatively affected business. 'Because of aggressive discounting at large online retailers many hardcover titles are being sold at similar or sometimes lower prices than paperbacks.'

Meanwhile, self-publishing is big business. 'In 2013, there were 99 self-published ebook best-sellers.' To put this potentially meaningless sentence into context, 'Hachette, one of the largest publishers in the world, led all publishers with 258; Harlequin was 11th on the list with 21.' Considering many of Hachette's successes were not traditional romances, but from a wide-range of genres, this statistic is so misleading it was perhaps not worth mentioning. Still, the average price of an e-book will soon level out, offering a more dependable insight into future profits. Fortunately for Mills & Boon their new bosses, HarperCollins, know a thing or two about price-fixing e-books. Self-publishing offers numerous advantages to the self-publisher. An author has creative control, and only has to deal with themselves, albeit wearing a different hat. The share of the royalties is greater, seventy per cent compared to fifteen to twenty-five per cent that is traditional for Harlequin writers. Finally and perhaps best, there is no chance of receiving a rejection letter from the company who have recently released books entitled From Enemy's Daughter to Expectant Bride, Cowboy Under the Mistletoe and The Last Good Knight.

In response to an increase in self-publishing, Mills & Boon have attempted to offer more compelling reasons for authors to choose a publishing house. They have introduced Harlequin’s Author Network, 'a dashboard where authors can check sales, get market intelligence and have all their questions answered by a concierge service.' Still, the appeal of self-publishing is strong. Anyone able to cover the cost can publish their own twist on Fifty Shades of Grey, but for the customer there is no difference between those authors choosing artistic freedom and those who would be read any other way. The stamp of Mills & Boon approval guarantees a uniformly indistinguishable level of expectation, but perhaps readers are drawn to the thrill of the unknown found within the abyss of the internet. For News Corp. the prestige of the company name was considered worth the investment. For the money spent, Mills & Boon is a sound purchase. Romance Fiction is a lucrative market, and HarperCollins has placed itself at its centre in a single move.

As for the future, will they seek to make adjustments to the product? Is this positive news for aspiring authors and loyal readers? 'From a reader’s standpoint, it concerns me because Harlequin has always been innovative and tried to bring diverse story lines,' says Jane Litte, founder of Dear Reader. In particular Little singles out Harlequin's ethnic imprints, but their appeal to foreign markets is what made them so appealing to News Corporation. Craig Swinwood attempted to reassure readers in the aftermath of the deal's announcement. 'The Harlequin name and rich heritage will be preserved independently, with the aim to leverage capabilities to bring the book-reading public more choices.' Litte recognises that it is too soon to tell what this will mean for loyal readers, beyond knowing that now there will be a new more reason for feeling dirty and guilty for purchasing a romance novel.

“He didn't have much choice with her tugging at him the way she was”

For all our talk of Mills & Boon, and this weblog does seem unhealthily devoted to Mills & Boon, there are numerous other ways to see your romance novel published. There will be a time when Bewildered Heart turns its attention to the likes of Josephine Cox, Nora Roberts and Daphne Something, and when we've lost all hope and turned viciously on ourselves you, gentle reader, shall be the first to know. Until then, and as a break from all this Cherish nonsense, let us gaze upon a novel so different from our standard fare that only the name of the publishers offers any semblance of change – Harlequin Presents a Special Edition Harlequin Silhouette, Special Edition.

When Mills & Boon failed to tap the potential of the United States and their many women Simon & Schuster sought to fill that gap, and they called their romance imprint Silhouette. As we've previously established, Harlequin, owned by Torstar, bought Mills & Boon and Silhouette a few years later rendering the whole sordid affair even more trivial than you might have thought. However, before Harlequin changed the banners and confused us more than we would appreciate having to acknowledge Silhouette worked from the same office as Mills & Boon, published the same sort of books with the same sort of titles and same colour covers with the same photographs of couples canoodling, but under a changed tagline of, “For every kind of woman. For every kind of mood.” Hah, that's a lie, isn't it, Harlequin?

In 2005 Allison Leigh wrote The Truth About the Tycoon, and through a twist of coincidence Bewildered Heart found a copy and decided to save itself a trip to the library. Any illusions, or wishful thinkings, that Silhouette might offer a slightly improved approach to romance writing than Mills & Boon were immediately shattered by the blurb, where the reader is introduced to the two leads, a worldly billionaire hiding a devastating secret and a virginal small-town girl named Hadley Golightly. Having read the first three chapters our understanding of what we have in store has worsened to Mills & Boon Modern Romance levels of despair.

Don't take our word for it, however. Allow Bewildered Heart to explain in typically gratuitous detail. Hadley is twenty-seven, loves her life in Montana, runs an infrequently boarded boardinghouse, enjoys baking baked goods and concocting soup. She has never slept with a man and has two brothers and a sister who are always bothering her about her non-existent love life. Oh, Hadley. You're a creature of rare disposition. But look, for there is less to this pretty woman than jumps from the page. She is also tragically shy and easily-frightened, her voice barely audible and her self-esteem a very attractive low.

Meanwhile, our heroic hunk of wealthy masculinity has everything one might expect from such a character, including the name Dane Rutherford. He's curt, arrogant, mind-bogglingly gorgeous, enigmatic and well-travelled. He has two facial scars to reveal his raw manliness and capability of taming, but small scars only a woman gazing very closely would notice. Hadley and Dane meet at the scene of a car crash, shortly after Hadley and Dane's vehicles crash into one another. Hadley comes through without a scrape, but Dane's classic sports car is totalled and he is bleeding from the head. No sooner have they made poor first impressions of themselves has Hadley's brother, the Sheriff, arrived and arrested Dane for driving without a license. Why doesn't Dane have a driving license? Well, he does, it is in his bag, but Dane is concealing a potentially dramatic secret. His name is, in fact, Dane Rutherford, of Rutherford Industries, the biggest corporation in the world of The Truth About the Tycoon.

For Hadley, her brother and the quaint town of Lucius, Dane is the unassuming Atwood Tolliver. In Hadley's naïve and adoring eyes Wood is just an incredibly attractive sports car enthusiast on vacation in chilly Montana, when in fact he is Dane Rutherford, an incredibly attractive billionaire come to town with murder on his mind. Oh yeah! The plot congeals. Hadley is delighted that the pleasant and helpful Wood has decided to stay at her boardinghouse. It allows her the opportunity to test her skills at driving men away and hating herself for having driven a man away. Despite her tuneless mating calls, Dane cannot afford the distraction of romance. Years ago his sister was kidnapped and tormented by the evil Alan Michaels, and his release from prison has caused Dane's father, Roth, to have a heart attack. Therefore only one course of action is open to the son, head to Lucius and begin an unconvincing romance with the local twenty-seven year old virgin.

By the end of the third chapter so much has been established despite very little happening, besides the inciting car wreck and a smattering of meals. Allison Leigh has bought us up to speed and introduced us to the hero and heroine. The lengthy explanations are rather needless though, as so far Dane and Hadley are identical to every pairing in the history of the genre. Yet despite the trappings of the form there are certain deviations that propel The Truth About the Tycoon into the almost palatable. Hadley is neurotic and socially-awkward, yet beautiful and unfailingly friendly. With her easy-going lifestyle, her simple outlook, her casual self-loathing and her upper class stalker there remains an element to her person that makes her relatable to the twenty-seven-year-old virgin whom dwells in all of us.

While the location of Lucius uses every cliché expected of rustic Americana the setting carries with it a predictable charm and the boardinghouse in particular is a novel twist, offering Leigh an opportunity to add an assortment of oddball characters which she manages to squander. This is not our first read of a romance in a small-town in the United States, of course. Finding Nick was set somewhere in Texas, Learning Curves took us into the heart of Arizona and The Dad Next Door played out in whichever state Squam Lake is in. The homespun values of these fictional, idealised locations are well juxtaposed by the demands of an harassed, ruthless billionaire passing through. Modern Romance seems to call for the fast-paced world of urbanity and professionalism. Cherish, and whatever The Truth About the Tycoon turns out to be, can optimise the lax attitude of country living. However, with every writer and reader aware of this obvious contrast one must be careful to avoid slipping into stereotype, fish-out-of-water shenanigans and scenes from Reese Witherspoon movies. While it is too late for Allison Leigh it is worth making a note of it here, for our sake.

This is not our first brush with crime and kidnap either. We all remember MacKenzie's Promise no matter how hard we try to erase it from our collective memory. However, unlike that deeply inappropriate mixture of child-suffering, murder and life-affirming sex, The Truth About the Tycoon suggests a route of the healing power of love. Will Dane find redemption from his dishonesty and homicidal intent through the disarming beauty and innocence of a good woman? In any other genre it would be too early to tell, but with Harlequin Presents a Special Edition Harlequin Silhouette, Special Edition we should avoid becoming too cynical too soon.

What may happen is that Alan Michaels will continue to be evil, and Dane will heroically save another child from the same fate of his sister, but through doing so will reveal his true identity and actual motivations to the increasingly smitten Hadley. At her discovery of his treachery and heroism she will turn away, hurt and shocked, stripped of her innocence and trust, only for Dane's sister to explain what was really going on before Dane returns to say something, or smile, or take his shirt off, leading Hadley to accept that she cannot convince her heart, or brain, otherwise, as she is already head over heels in love with this man, whatever his name is and whoever he turns out to be once he ends the charade of pretending to be a sports car enthusiast to cover his intentions of violent revenge. Hadley didn't even know he was a billionaire Rutherford, and that surely proves how pure her devotion is. At this point that looks the more likely course, but Bewildered Heart hopes for everyone's sanity it is the former. For now at least we have a reason to continue reading.

“His arrogance was gone...”

Mills & Boon are a publishing house based in London. They were founded in 1908 and have remained consistently successful in business, despite being much ridiculed for their literary ambitions. They have no literary ambitions, in truth, happy to plough a field of emotionally-stunted, instantly dated romance fiction read by middle-aged women with no discernible taste and written by middle-aged women with no discernible talent.

Who understands what readers want better than the readers themselves? asked Mills & Boon, both men, Gerald and Charles, who died decades ago. Shortly after Mills' death his firm began to concentrate on the romantic fiction it has since become famous for. Then, in 1971 romance changed forever, when Mills & Boon was bought out by a Canadian firm, Harlequin Enterprises, the North American equivalent of Mills & Boon.

Soon after that it all got tawdry, with Harlequin ending their relationship with Simon and Schuster. Enraged, no doubt, and questioning their own capacity for love, Simon and Schuster formed Silhouette, tapping the untapped market of American romance writers Harlequin had spurned. Naturally jealous to see their ex-partners doing so well, Harlequin found a new sugar-daddy in the Torstar Corporation. Torstar sounds rugged, with prominent jaw-line and eyes as green as emeralds. Maybe a scar too, but underneath the wounds there lurks a conglomerate desperate for compassion.

Tiring of the jealously and spite between the rival publishing houses, Torstar bought Silhouette in the early eighties, back when buying companies was popular. And because of that rather dodgy plot contrivance, Silhouette and Harlequin confessed to being perfect for one another all along and lived happily ever after. Despite becoming one Silhouette retained its independence and possible feelings of superiority, which to continue the analogy makes Silhouette the woman, with Harlequin the Greek tycoon's idealistic and passionate brother, and Torstar the Greek Tycoon, so cruel, distant and wealthy. But of course, we all knew Silhouette would end up with Harlequin, the artistic one. Silhouette needs to be loved, yes, but also respected and treated as an equal. That's who Silhouette is. It's in her feisty Canadian blood.

There are many, many romantic fiction publishing companies, but nowadays they are all owned by the same group, to simplify matters needlessly complicated. We are unlikely to hear from Torstar again (at least until the cheques roll in), but from now on when the names of Mills & Boon, Harlequin and Silhouette crop up, we will know who they are.

When a new Mills & Boon novel is published it heads onto the shelves of the kinds of shop that sell Mills & Boon novels, and there it stays for a month. Any copies unsold after those four weeks are pulped, because once the month is up a new book is ready to take the shelf-space. After that, if a reader wants a specific book they must trawl charity shops, second-hand bookstores with no dignity and libraries for a particular title. The love in the fictional stories is eternal, the books themselves, however, are not so fortunate.

If this sounds as if it could be a cheap and shameless exploitation then your insightful will be wasted on reviewing romance titles. After all, how can a publisher feed a manuscript lies of triumph, adulation and the opportunity to select the torsos which will adorn the novel's cover, only to then use it and throw it away, and move onto the next without so much as a thanks, baby, for a fleeting moment of connection? That feeling of dirtiness is probably worth getting used to.