Adelaide, who works for a pediatric hospital in London, decides to do a yearlong exchange at an Amsterdam hospital. As she struggles to get used to the culture and language, Adelaide meets Professor Coenraad van Essen. She can’t help but fall in love with this handsome, charming man. But she knows that she doesn’t stand a chance with someone so out of her league.
Adelaide, who works for a pediatric hospital in London, decides to do a yearlong exchange at an Amsterdam hospital. As she struggles to get used to the culture and language, Adelaide meets Professor Coenraad van Essen. She can’t help but fall in love with this handsome, charming man. But she knows that she doesn’t stand a chance with someone so out of her league.
Julia Gracey has always lived by the rule that women should stand on their own two feet. But whenever there's a problem, Professor Gerard van der Maes always seems to be on hand with the perfect solution! Gerard seems determined to steal Julia's heart—yet she's just as adamant that he won't take over her life. But when Julia is about to lose her home, Gerard offers one final proposition that she finds impossible to resist—marriage!
She probably shouldn't have married him... Annis's life as daughter of the Rectory was a busy and happy one, certainly not lacking in love—but she loved Jake Royle even more than she loved her family. So when he proposed to her she didn't hesitate, even though she knew he didn't love her. Jake had said from the start that he didn't think love was necessary to make a marriage work. But even if she could accept his lack of feeling for her, would Jake ever admit Annis into his life?
What can a cultural history of the heartthrob teach us about women, desire, and social change? From dreams of Prince Charming or dashing military heroes, to the lure of dark strangers and vampire lovers; from rock stars and rebels to soulmates, dependable family types or simply good companions, female fantasies about men tell us as much about the history of women as about masculine icons. When girls were supposed to be shrinking violets, passionate females risked being seen as "unbridled," or dangerously out of control. Change came slowly, and young women remained trapped in double-binds. You may have needed a husband in order to survive, but you had to avoid looking like a gold-digger. Sexual desire could be dangerous: a rash guide to making choices. Show attraction too openly and you might be judged "fast" and undesirable. Education and wage-earning brought independence and a widening of cultural horizons. Young women in the early twentieth century showed a sustained appetite for novel-reading, cinema-going, and the dancehall. They sighed over Rudolph Valentino's screen performances, as tango-dancer, Arab tribesman, or desert lover. Contemporary critics were sniffy about "shop-girl" taste in literature and in men, but as consumers, girls had new clout. In Heartthrobs, social and cultural historian Carole Dyhouse draws upon literature, cinema, and popular romance to show how the changing position of women has shaped their dreams about men, from Lord Byron in the early nineteenth century to boy-bands in the early twenty-first. Reflecting on the history of women as consumers and on the nature of fantasy, escapism, and "fandom," she takes us deep into the world of gender and the imagination. A great deal of feminist literature has shown women as objects of the "male gaze": this book looks at men through the eyes of women.
This is the first history of Mills & Boon, the British publishing phenomenon which has become a household name, synonymous with romantic fiction. On the firm's 90th anniversary, Joseph McAleer has written the first history of Mills & Boon, drawing upon a long-lost archive of over 50,000 letters which reveal the intricate relationship between editorial policy, social attitudes, and sales. McAleer examines the dictates of the Mills & Boon formula and demonstrates how novels were 'Managed' by the firm to ensure maximum sales and to nurture a cadre of loyal readers in Britain and throughout the Commonwealth. The result is a cultural phenomenon whose 'product' reflected the attitudes and morals of the age while offering women an addictive escape from everyday life. It's a fascinating read for anyone who's ever wondered about writing a Mills & Boon, or wants to understand the story behind one of the most successful British firms of the twentieth century.
This book charts the publishing industry and bestselling fiction from 1900, featuring a comprehensive list of all bestselling fiction titles in the UK. This third edition includes a new introduction which features additional information on current trends in reading including the rise of Black, Asian and LGBTQIA+ publishing; the continuing importance of certain genres and up to date trends in publishing, bookselling, library borrowing and literacy. There are sections on writing for children, on the importance of audiobooks and book clubs, self- published bestsellers as well as many new entries to the present day including bestselling authors such as David Walliams, Peter James, George R R Martin and far less well known authors whose books s sell in their thousands. This is the essential guide to best-selling books, authors, genres, publishing and bookselling since 1900, providing a unique insight into more than a century of entertainment, and opening a window into the reading habits and social life of the British from the death of Queen Victoria to the Coronavirus Pandemic.
QUITE BY CHANCE… Eleanor not only remembered the domineering Fulk van Hensum from her childhood, she recalled how much she had disliked him. Now Eleanor was grown-up and a qualified nurse, and suddenly Fulk, a renowned consultant, was back in her life. He hadn’t changed a bit—he was still dictatorial and overbearing, which was a problem, since under the circumstances she couldn’t avoid him! It shouldn’t have mattered that Fulk was engaged to the lovely Imogen…but somehow it did.
