1. Thirty five million Mills & Boon titles are sold each year worldwide. Think we have a stiff upper lip? Seven million romantic novels are sold in the UK alone . . .

2. . . . which translates into a Mills & Boon book being put through our tills every 3 seconds.

3. But it’s not just us: Harlequin publishes the books in 26 different languages and they are sold in 109 countries.

4. Over the past 50 years the characters have had phenomenal luck in love. There have been 10,325 weddings (latest statistics show there were 244,710 non-fictional marriages in England and Wales in 2005), a lip-smacking 29,500 kisses (real-life statistics unavailable) and 35,250 hugs (a paucity considering the number of marriages).

5. Some 1,300 authors are employed by the publisher, approximately 200 of them through the UK office.

6. With its monthly readership of more than 1 million, Harlequin Mills & Boon is a UK Top 10 adult fiction publisher.

7. Enduring love? We’re a fickle lot. Mills & Boon series books have a shelf life of only one month. To keep up with demand, they are released in two shipping cycles each month (the first and third Friday, should you be waiting).

8. There are, therefore, approximately 70 titles published every month in the UK

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