It’s always hard looking back at the year, so many memories, so little time! But we thought it would be nice to share with you just a few of the highlights of what’s been an action packed year. We’ve had Racy Reads, Summer Reads and even Red-Hot Reads, in what’s been an incredible year for our authors. We started the year with a new member to the family, when Anouska Knight took the crown of Lorraine Kelly’s Racy Reads competition. Announced on Valentine’s Day, it was definitely love at first sight as Anouska then went on to finish writing her debut novel, Since You’ve Been Gone, in only 3 months! It was a photo-finish but definitely a sprint worth watching as the book went on to reach number 41 in the official Bookseller charts – an incredible achievement! Currently working on her second book, we can’t wait to see what 2014 brings for such a promising new voice.

One of the guest judges on Racy Reads was none other than Victoria Fox. It’s also been a bonkbusting year for this author, with the publication of not only Wicked Ambition, her sizzling summer read, but Victoria also published her debut Mills & Boon book, Glittering Fortunes! It’s a wonderful feeling to welcome Victoria to the family, and once again, we can’t wait to see what’s in store for 2014!

Now on to the section that we should probably rename The Hip Hip Hooray section! If you hadn’t guessed by that poorly-named section title, 2013 was an incredible year for prizes. Great news for the authors, bad news for their dress-buying credit cards! Yes we’ve seen glitz and glamour aplenty this year, whether it was the red carpet of Atlanta, Georgia for the RWA or the stunning Royal Air Force club in Piccadilly, London for the RNA, the authors have been out in their numbers and scooping up awards. We’d like to extend a huge Mills & Boon congratulations to Sarah Morgan for her fabulous RITA award (second year running…ahem!) for A Night of No Return, to Nicola Marsh for her RWAus RUBY award for Marrying the Enemy (which also scooped the American National Readers Choice award!), and to Sarah Mallory for her RNA Rose award for Beneath the Major’s Scars. Such an amazing achievement by some of our most loved authors, well done ladies!

It’s not only been one long award season, the party season has been swinging as well. We’ve had great cause for celebration this year with many milestones being achieved by authors here in the UK. Marguerite Kaye, Elizabeth Power and Kate Hewitt all reached the milestone of 25 books with the fabulous Jennifer Taylor getting to book number 75!

Onto the books! We’ve had the privilege of publishing some fantastic titles this year, and I’m sure if this blog allowed us to write for the next 5 days we could cover everything we’d like! But sadly, we can only name but a few and here are some of the highlights from this year…Modern Tempted launched! Woo! September saw this sexy and contemporary line launch featuring top authors such as Heidi Rice, Kelly Hunter and Aimee Carson! The fresh and flirty books have been a huge success and we can’t wait to give you more of it next year. Speaking of more, we’ve got a brand new Medical continuity launching in 2014! That’s all we can tell you for now but what about the amazing continuities that came out this year!? We dated doctors in New York in NYC Angels and surfed the waves with our Gold Coast Angels! Finally, we simply must talk about this Christmas and the brand new full length titles from Sarah Morgan and Fiona Harper. Sleigh Bells in the Snow by Sarah Morgan and Make My Wish Come True by Fiona Harper have landed on our shelves this Christmas and really do make our festive season sparkle! These two books have been the perfect end to our 2013 and we really can’t wait to do it all again this year. 

We hope this year is your most romantic yet.  

By The Mills & Boon team