A passion for romantic fiction pulses in the heart of Taree. Lust and love coarse through storylines of amorous adventures within 1600 Mills & Boon novels at Taree Literary Institute.
Climb the institute stairwell in Victoria Street to see shelves lined with hardcover pink edition Mills & Boon.
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It is visually striking, feels a little naughty to discover and elicits a giggle as I recall the childhood discovery of Mills & Boon novels in a box under a bed in my grandmother’s home. It is a fond memory of secret furtive reading during school holidays – paragraphs that made my cheeks flush – kisses were hot, breasts were full and men were hard.
It’s been more than 35 years since I quickly scanned pages of a Mills & Boon novel to find sentences of passion in simple storylines wracked with tension, tears and the drama of love lost and found – it’s formula writing, there are few surprises and yet it adds delight and distraction to the lives of so many women, says librarian Kylie Attard.
People love them and they are the biggest lending part of our library. There has never been a lack of interest in Mills & Boon!
- Taree Literary Institute librarian, Kylie Attard
She looks to the shelves and says “that’s about 16 years of romance because we buy just under 100 Mills & Boon a year.”
Around 60 to 80 novels are loaned each week to members and Kylie says new novels are in demand.
“I keep piles under the desk. We have our little system of who gets them first, second, third and fourth before they go on the shelf.”
Suzanne Booth opened her first Mills & Boon novel around 13 years of age and believes she has read “hundreds, no actually thousands.” She says they were an integral part of her life when she became a mother.
“They are easy to pick up and put down and it doesn’t matter if you lose your place because you know what is going to happen! When my children were babies and woke in the night you didn’t always go back to sleep, they were a wonderful distraction.”
Suzanne is the secretary of the institute and says “if we didn’t have them I don’t think we would have many members, between them and the westerns.”
Around 800 large print westerns also sit on the wooden shelves and Kylie describes them as the “man’s Mills & Boon” but adds “it is very rare to find romance in a western, it’s mostly shoot ‘em up and drive ‘em out of town.”
Kylie is keen to grow membership of the institute. It is more than a job, it holds her heart and childhood memories as she has been visiting and borrowing since she was seven years old as her mother, Carol Emerton worked as the librarian for 31 years.
She cites “old-fashioned customer service” as a point of difference to the larger public libraries in the region and is quick to share they also deliver books to the homes of members in the Manning Valley.
“We know their names, we know what so many of our members like to read. We love that people will come to sit to chat for an hour just because they might be lonely at home.”
President Brian Crisp is proud of the success of the institute and its success in the Taree community since 1864. It owns the building and it is the rent of the shops beneath the institute that finances its operational costs, including the $20,000 annual book budget.
He laughs as he comments on the success of the large range of Mills & Boon and says it is a topic of discussion at committee meetings.
“We have some unusual little laughs about the pink ones!”
The Mills & Boon website offers a small selection of free online reads in its library.
Click here to read A Silver Creek Christmas by Delores Fossen.
