Author Rosie Richards has written 100 books for Mills & Boon, telling imaginative romantic stories of doctors, nurses, midwives and those in the medical profession.
By Ara Jansen
Someone once told Rosie Richards that a surgeon read her books in between operating because they enabled him to relieve stress and get away for a while.
“We absolutely need escapism at the moment,” says the New Zealand author, who writes for Mills & Boon. “I’ve always been a huge fan of the happy ending. Fiction can be life with a feeling of hope and humanity. I want to feel good when I put a book down – or at least hopeful.”
Founded in 1908, Mills & Boon is one of the world’s most successful publisher of romance novels and Rosie, writing as Alison Roberts, is one of their regular and longtime writers who pens novels in their medical romance series.
It’s believed that the first medical themed Mills & Boon romance was 1917’s Days of Probation by Louise Gerard with the first Australian author published being Joan Blair who wrote Sister of the Nelson Ward, published in 1937.
By 1955, the company’s catalogue included a section on doctor stories which suggests these stories had developed into a genre, possibly fuelled by the development of the NHS in the UK and the emergence of medical TV drama such as Emergency Ward Ten. As both the NHS and medical TV shows continued to grow over the coming decades, it has only added fuel to what became called the medical series in the M&B catalogue.
According to M&B, doctors and nurses have long been popular heroes and heroines because they save lives and work in intense and emotional environments, making their stories ideal for drama, romance and the escapism of falling in love.
Though sometimes sneered at for their romantic notions, being lightweight reading and titles like Her Secret Rio Baby, From Nightshift to Forever, Taming the Hot-Shot Doc and Marriage Miracle in Emergency, Mills & Boon releases about 700 new titles annually, sells millions of copies, has millions more read through libraries and books are translated into over 25 languages.
Rosie Richards, who lives in Christchurch, has been writing medical themed romances for M&B for decades and has chalked up 10 million in sales. She writes five books a year – 50,000 words every 10 weeks – and this year published her one hundredth romance for the company.
“When I first came across Mills & Boon, I thought they were all bodice-ripping princes and sheriffs but the medical books were realistic and relatable, a bit like some of those long-running medical TV series,” she says.
“I think one of the reasons my books have been successful is because I know what people are looking for, because I’m looking for it myself. I’ve not found my happy ending yet and I think romance in your life is important.”
While she loves writing, it’s also Rosie’s job, so she writes every day in order to hit her deadlines. She lived and wrote in France before COVID brought her back to New Zealand.
Around her fourth book, Rosie became a volunteer paramedic for 20 hours a week which gave her an added insight into the technical aspects of the job, enabling her to write with practical understanding. Her father and ex-husband were both doctors which also added to her knowledge base.
While medical experience is not essential, M&B has current and previous doctors, nurses, paramedics, midwives and physiotherapists authoring books for them. Others just love writing romances in a medical setting and thrive on doing the research. While the company welcomes a diverse author base, most of the M&B authors are female, though there has been the odd male.
“I have always wanted to be authentic,” says Rosie, who is in her 60s. “Doctors have read my books and I have never had complaints about inaccuracy.
“My writing has always been very instinctive. I have a reader which sits on my shoulder and if they don’t like what’s happening, something has to change. There’s a movie director on the other shoulder who is arranging the scene, while I’m inside the characters’ heads. So, I juggle all of that and somehow it comes together.
“People want the same thing but different, which is the challenge for us as authors. I challenge myself to improve my writing and do something that’s different each book. I couldn’t do the same thing over and over again.
“I have great fun playing with timing, characters and turning things around to make them interesting. The secret baby trope is popular, and I think I was the first romance author to turn that around with a character who had donated her eggs to a friend and didn’t know about the baby.
“Because these books are set in the medical arena with patients, you can deal with darker and heavier issues compared to other romances, like a GP who has Huntington’s and therefore won’t get involved with anyone. But you can put a character in his path which changes his outlook or forces people together or creates an energy that sends them in different directions.”
The Vet’s Unexpected Family is Rosie’s one hundredth book and features a celebrity vet instead of a doctor and an overweight heroine. She’s also been interested to watch the cultural changes which affect writing and how Mills & Boon books have reflected that.
Now it’s acceptable to have same-sex couples, mentions of IVF, characters in wheelchairs or even throuples, which weren’t part of storylines when she started writing.
“It’s a great career and I have made a living from it,” says the mother of one and former primary school teacher. “I’m also writing a mainstream romance and have set it in a small, old town in France, which is the home of my soul, as opposed to New Zealand, which is the home of my heart.”
For those wanting to inject some romance in their lives or just escape between patients, there are more than 1250 Mills & Boon medical romance titles available in Australia.