THEY have long been written off as sugar-sweet, lightweight and predictable but now Mills & Boon novels are getting a rebrand – as highbrow feminist literature.

Academic Val Derbyshire, from the University of Sheffield, thinks it is time we began taking the sexy romantic sagas more seriously.

She says: “It is such a shame that these books have been so vilified and that people treat them as trash and the black sheep of the literary family.

“There really is literary value in them, which is why I continue to read them.”

Val, who has got through hundreds of Mills & Boon books and will be hosting two events on the subject at her university’s Festival of the Mind next month, thinks they have both literary and feminist value.

She says: “They are definitely not anti-feminist.

“These are novels written primarily by women, for women, so why would they set out to insult their target audience? It doesn’t make sense.”

One thing is for sure, the Mills & Boon tales are loved across the globe — they sell 130 million copies a year, in 126 countries.

The 100-year-old publishing house is responsible for three quarters of all romance paperbacks sold in Britain — with marriage, babies, billionaires and exotic locations proving the most popular themes.

And thanks to the success of EL James’s Fifty Shades of Grey novels, the erotic and romantic fiction market is red hot.

It is now worth an estimated £20million a year, up 50 per cent since 2011, before the first Fifty Shades volume was published.

Mills & Boon, which was founded in 1908 as a general publisher but switched to romance in the 1930s, is still the leader in its market.

Tom Tivnan, features and insight editor at trade magazine The Bookseller, reckons the Fifty Shades phenomenon has caused a cultural shift in our attitudes toward sexy novels.

He says: “The main thing is that it took erotic and romantic fiction out of the dusty back end of the bookshop and brought it front and centre.

“People are more comfortable reading these books in public and, even if they are not, you can just download them on to your Kindle and not feel abashed.

“I guess people are growing up in their attitudes to sex.”

And while insiders are quick to admit that the popularity of EL James’ novels have done nothing but good for the industry, many point out that hers is a winning formula that Mills & Boon has been promoting for years.

AT A GLANCE

>MOST POPULAR THEMES Babies and Billionaires
> 130 MILLION BOOKS Sold in 126 countries yearly
>EROTICA AND ROMANCE Market up 50% since 2011

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Abby Green is one of Mills & Boon’s bestselling authors, with 32 books to her name after eight years of writing, and 5.5million sales worldwide.

She says: “We were doing the Fifty Shades story long before EL James did it. What struck me, and what she says about it herself, is that at its heart it is a romance.

“Although all the media focus is on the spanking, the erotica element is actually quite tame in comparison to some of the other things that have been on the market for years.

"What really hit a nerve with readers was the romance, and that is what made it such a mainstream hit.”

Long-time romance fan Abby, 38, from Dublin, started writing after she became disillusioned with her film industry job eight years ago.

Her fans range from teenagers in Indonesia to a 102-year-old pensioner in America.

She writes mainly for Mills & Boon’s Modern Romance line, described as “a world of sophistication and glamour, where sinfully seductive heroes await you in luxurious international locations”.

Abby says: “The hero is usually very strong, very powerful, very successful, drop-dead gorgeous and super-rich, which is all part of the fantasy.

"The heroine will sometimes have a Cinderella-type background but increasingly we write about heroines who are on a par with the hero, just as successful and his match in every way.

“There is high sensuality and heightened emotions and the story will be about some sort of internal conflict that is keeping these two people apart.”

Val Derbyshire says that critics who say Mills & Boon books always feature needy heroines, desperate for the love of a brutish man, are wrong.

She adds: “I suspect people who have never read the books would say that.

“There are an awful lot of people who think they know what is going on in a Mills & Boon novel by just looking at the cover.

“There is a huge amount of snobbery. It exists not just in academia and literature circles but generally.

“Some people just do not feel comfortable sitting on a bus, reading a Mills & Boon, and that is a shame.

“If you have never read one, how can you know?”

FANS OF M&B MAY ALSO LIKE THESE CURRENT AUTHOR

JODI ELLEN MALPAS: Mum-of-two Jodi, from Northampton, divorced after her husband failed to live up to one of her fantasy characters.Hailed as the “rising star” of erotic fiction, Jodi, 34, had her first hit with the This Man trilogy in 2012. She writes about interior designer Ava O’Shea, who falls for a hunky client.

INDIGO BLOOME: After a banking career in London and Sydney, she returned to her native Australia to write. She is best known for her Avalon Trilogy about psychologist Dr Alexandra Burke. In the first instalment, she meets her dangerous ex-loverJeremy Quinn at a conference and submits to 48 hours of crazy sex.

PORTIA DA COSTA: The veteran author lives in Yorkshire with her husband and four cats, and has written erotica since 1990. Her biggest hit came in 2012, with In Too Deep – the story of librarian Gwendolynne Price, who starts a relationship with a man she’s never met, via saucy notes left in her suggestion box.

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