Empty Vessels make the most noise...

As a M&B addict, I'm really looking forward to their centenary year. It promises to be a year full of wonderful books and I can't wait to get my hands on all the special releases which M&B will be publishing (especially the short stories with the 1980s covers!)

As their centenary approaches, the media spotlight has inadvertently started to shine upon the company and lo and behold the critics have already started to sharpen their claws and have begun to take up valuable space in newspapers proclaiming that these book promote patriarchy and are an insult to women everywhere as they depict women in abusive relationships with men who are rapists and abusers.

Julie Bindel's article in the Guardian had me shaking my head in frustration. Here's a journalist who based her argument on a 20 or so books she read 15 years ago. Yes, that's right 15 years ago, when the lines hadn't been split in the UK and when they were just known as Mills and Boon not Modern or Romance. Ms. Bindel then read the blurbs of three books and proclaimed that these books are forumlaic and mysgonistic. And to add insult to injury, she concluded her article with a quote by Andrea Dworkin who stated that M&Bs are 'rape with meaningful books'.

I just couldn't believe that the Guardian editor published this shoddily researched article! For one thing, Ms. Bindel has only ever read 20 books 15 years ago!! When M&B publish about thirty books per month! Secondly, she didn't even read a single chapter of a recently published book. Oh no, instead she just read three blurbs and concluded that she was right all along. Oh, please!

Thank goodness that the Guardian had the foresight to publish Daisy Cummings (fab M&B author Abby Green)'s insightful article about the company!

I still do not understand why on earth the critics think that M&Bs are such a threat to women and society. M&Bs readers know that they are not going to met a sheikh, a greek tycoon or a Regency rake, but they just enjoy reading compelling stories about two people falling in love.

Ms. Bindel admitted that she loves Martina Cole - a writer who puts her heroines through rape, prison and murder, but who in the end not only manage to emerge victorious, but they also walk into the sunset with the men of their dreams!