Presents and Presents Extra

When I asked abut the new covers and scheduling, Jill made what I think is a very good and interesting point in her comment. She said:

I also think that Harlequin could do a lot more to distinguish Presents and
Presents Extra in North America. They have very different "feels" and that is
not reflected in the covers or the titles.

Well, basically, Jill, my response is ‘Me too’ - but it’s the main Presents schedule that I wish Marketing would get to grips with and make a lot clearer. I understand that some sort of changes are in the pipeline. And not before time in my opinion – there are a lot of readers out there who have been confused and puzzled by the way some books have been published in Presents over the past year or so. It’s a situation that has had meant that some people have bought books they weren’t truly happy with. Books that didn’t give them what they wanted. And has left others not really know which books to buy to get the sort of read they’re looking for.


It’s also sometimes meant that some people have found new authors they’ve fallen in love with, authors they want to read more of – which is the good side of this and I suspect that might have been the original plan behind the new way of publishing Presents Extra. But it’s a bit more complicated than the thought that the main Presents run at the beginning of the month have stayed exactly the same, while the Presents Extra are the ‘different’ ones. And as I have a book coming out in Presents Extra in October I’ll take this opportunity to explain things as they stand now. And thank you Jill for asking the question to lead me to doing this.



OK, so all the Presents/Presents Extra books are originally bought by the London UK editorial offices – that is, they are read, edited and acquired by Harlequin Mills & Boon UK. They are published in the UK first and then, either the same month, or later in the year, they are published in America. The books that are published in the Presents line-up in USA used to be acquired solely from one line in the UK - the Modern Romance line. (The books with the blue covers that you see in my sidebar etc.) But these days, the books that are put out with a Presents cover are acquired from two different lines. (With some exceptions but I’ll come to that in a minute.) So now the Presents/Extra books are acquired from the Modern Romance Line and the Modern Heat line.

And the first complication starts to come in because the Modern Heat used to be called the Modern Extra and the name of the line was changed in 2008.

So in the UK and in Australia, these books are brought out under a separate line title – in Australia they are sold as Sexy Sensation, with a distinctly different cover design. In the UK you have to look a little harder for that ‘Heat’ addition to the cover but it’s there. Personally, I think this is a very good – and necessary distinction. Because the editorial content of these books is very different in tone and in execution from the classic Modern/Presents style editorial. You’ve only got to look at the writing guidelines for each line – specially the checklists for the type of alpha hero they are looking for - to see this:


Mills & Boon Modern Romance®

Commanding: he’s always in control and calling the shots – except when the heroine finally tames him…
Demanding: he’s come a long way since his emotionally or financially impoverished childhood; he wants it done, and he wants it done now!
Arrogant: he believes in himself and the reach of his influence, totally – until the battle with his feelings for the heroine begins…
Passionate: sensual and sexy, he uses his charm and power to get what he wants, though his need for the heroine may ultimately prove stronger
Status: impossibly wealthy, probably self-made; often has celebrity status in the media. The ruler of all he surveys, be it a company or a country

Mills & Boon Modern Heat®

Young: he’s aged between 25 and 35 and has yet to settle down
Confident: he knows what he wants and has a good idea of how he’ll get it; he knows he’s attractive and relishes challenges – he might have a extreme hobby
Easy-going: he plays as hard as he works, knowing how and when to have a good time. He doesn’t sweat the small stuff…
Accessible: he’s very approachable, but his physical presence and his confidence and charm make him stand out from the crowd
Status: he hails from all walks of life and can have any level of success and wealth


For me the difference between the two is more than this - it’s a difference of mood and intensity – and very definitely of conflict. To me the hallmark of the classic Presents is that high-octane, white heat of emotional intensity that some people love and others hate and its one of the reasons why Modern/Presents has been so successful and why the line often sparks off so many debates about the books and the heroes. If you want to know more about what I think are the differences between these two lines, I wrote about it here:


So, to my way of thinking, it’s important to indicate which type of read a book is. This has been done in the UK and in Australia. In America, the Modern Heat editorial was originally published in the Presents Extra line-up, which marked them out as slightly different and so readers knew what they were getting – but all that has been changed. Just when everyone thought they knew that Extras were different, they aren’t any more! The Modern Heat books have been put in with the main run of the Presents titles at the beginning of the month, and the Presents Extras are precisely that –extra Presents out in the middle of the month. Presents/Modern-style stories written by Presents authors and put together in themed collections. (My Kept For Her Baby is out under the heading ‘Dark Nights with the Billionaire’ which, I’ll be honest, I don’t quite understand – but that’s marketing for you!)

The exception to this is when the Presents Extra line up is used to bring out some Medical titles and then the name of the series – Posh Docs, Mediterranean Doctors etc - will usually reveal that this is what has happened.

So it’s all a bit confusing to readers at the moment. I understand that in the near future there are plans to indicate on the covers what sort of story each book is but I don’t know quite what or when that’s going to happen. Speaking personally, it can’t come soon enough because if I was buying a Presents title I’d want to know that I was going to get the reading experience I was looking for. And if I wanted a Modern Heat style story I’d want to know where to look for that too. So I hope all this will soon be sorted out to make it clearer.

Until then, what can you do to check which sort of story a book is? Well, the obvious thing is to go by the author – authors you know have written classic Presents style books before will be the ones who will give you the same sort of read, no matter whether they come out in Presents or Presents Extra – Kept For Her Baby is a classic example. And the other titles in Extra that month are by Carole Mortimer, Lee Wilkinson and Janette Kenny – classic Presents authors.

In the main Presents line up at the beginning of the month, authors like Heidi Rice, Kate Hardy, Trish Wylie, Nicola Marsh . . .have all be published in Modern Heat first. You can check out the Modern Heat books on the Mills & Boon web site if you want to. They’re in with the Modern titles but they have that read ‘Heat’ on the front cover to indicate their style. Or putting Modern Heat into the search box on Amazon.co.uk will show you the authors who write for this line. Then you can make your choice.

So does this help – or confuse you even more? I think it just goes to show that, as Jill says, it’s time there was some way of showing that a book started out as a Modern Romance or a Modern Heat because they do have that different ‘feel’ and some readers prefer one and not the other .

Of course, now that I’ve explained all this, things will probably change all over again and nothing will be clear.
But the one thing I can promise you is that Kept For Her Baby is a classic Presents story – but you need to look for it in the Presents Extra line up that’s out on October 13th.

Just look for that fabulous cover and you’ll find it.

All About Alphas 8 - Kate Hardy

More on the Modern Heat Alpha today. Today's blogger is the human dynamo Kate Hardy wearing the first of her hats as a Modern Heat author. She'll be back later wearing her Medicals author.

And you'll see that there are differences in Kate's approach to writing her Alpha heroes from the way that the other Modern Heat author approached it. That's because, as I keep saying there are no rules.

And as the editors keep saying 'It's all in the execution.'

Because there is a wide range of types and styles of Alpha heroes. It's not the money or the glamour that makes him and Alpha - those are just trappings. And it's not the powerful, proactive, forceful responses that make him Alpha - those are responses to the challenge he's up against. The alpha is the man at the core. And each author has their own way of creating that man.

Here's Kate's -

The Modern Heat Alpha
This one’s a bit of a movable feast because the line’s still very young and the heroes still have room to change. In general, the Modern Heat Alpha tends to be somewhere between 25 and 35 and hasn’t quite settled down – even if he appears to be the head of a corporation, he’ll be restless because he’s still looking for something. He’s confident and loves a challenge; he’s drop-dead gorgeous and he’ll turn heads whether he’s wearing a business suit or a scruffy pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Have I mentioned that he’s a complete and utter sex-god? (And he’s very, very good at sex.)

And in the case of my heroes, he’s likely to have a nerdy side and a weird job. However, last time I spoke about this, on I Heart Presents, the line editor asked me to point out that they prefer the hero to have a PROPER job. I got away with turning my sheikh in Surrender to the Playboy Sheikh into a volcanologist because… um… it’s how things work, in my books, and my ed knows that if she tells me my hero has to be a banker, it’ll go very badly wrong and she’ll end up with a sex-god archaeologist or a stormchaser . The editors are looking for fresh voices (i.e. they already have one author who does weird jobs and that’s quite enough, thank you), so please give your hero a sensible job. You can, however, give him an extreme hobby… something that gives him a challenge he doesn’t get in his day job.

He’s definitely on his way to success, if not already there; he can see the big picture rather than worrying about tiny details (though if you quiz him, you’ll discover he has a handle on absolutely everything). He works hard (mine have workaholic tendencies); he also plays hard (which is how come my current Modern Heat duet is called ‘To Tame a Playboy’). He’s charming and approachable, wants someone who’ll be his equal, and is quite likely to make an outrageous bet with the heroine. He cares about his family and will put them first (as Giovanni does, in my RNA-award-winning Breakfast at Giovanni’s, aka In Bed With Her Italian Boss). But getting him to admit to loving the heroine… that’s where the she’s going to have a hard time. He’s be completely up front right at the start and say he doesn’t believe in love, doesn’t do love, and he’ll offer her an affair with very defined limits. But when he falls, he falls hard. And my favourite bit is when a Modern Heat alpha finally admits he loves the heroine – because he’ll do it with style!

Kate's latest Modern Heat hero is Luke in PLayboy Boss, Pregnancy of Passion out in the UK in May.

To Do List:

1 – Hire new Personal Assistant

2 – Do not sleep with new Personal Assistant

3 – Re-evaluate point two…

Tycoon Luke Holloway lives on the wild side, but at work he is a professional. However, his new employee Sara Fleet is irresistible. Before long he has unbuttoned his prim and proper assistant and they’re breaking all his rules…over and over again! Super-efficient Sara has never felt so out of control – and now she has to tell her sexy boss she is pregnant with his child!

All About Alphas 7 - Heidi Rice

I'll come back to the Presents /Modern Authors a bit later in this discussion - there are more of them who have sent me their thoughts on writing Alpha heroes - but today's blogger is someone who I hope can help you with that question that so many people seem to ask - just what is the difference betwewn a Modern/Presents Alpha and a Modern Heat Alpha?

So here is one of the stars of the Modern Heat line - Heidi Rice. I think that Heidi has made a very important point in the third paragraph here. Something that I think is vitally important when creating any sort of hero - but the more charged the conflcit, the more intense the response - and the stronger the motivation has to be shown to be.

First off, thanks Kate for inviting me to join in this Q&A. I love
talking about alpha heroes and as a Modern Heat author it's a particularly
intriguing topic because we do tend to get a lot of questions about how alpha
our heroes should be.



Personally I love to write my heroes with a lot of alpha traits, because
those are the traits I find sexy. He doesn't necessarily have to be super rich
(my first hero was a Harley-riding ex-con of no fixed abode), and he doesn't
have to be a corporate billionaire. I've had a best-selling novellist, a hotel
magnate and even a Hollywood actor. But all my heroes tend to be demanding (both
in bed and out!). They know what they want (or think they do). They'll do
whatever they have to do to get it (from seduction, to a bit of light-hearted
blackmail, to kidnapping) and they'll be totally focussed on their goal (which
is the heroine... what could be sexier than that, right). And like all great
alphas they're also protective, nurturing and honourable. To which you're
probably saying, 'hey, hang on a mo, how can a guy be honourable and then
blackmail someone?'



The answer is simple, they have to believe in their heart of hearts it's
the right thing to do. So here's a top tip, when writing an alpha hero (or any
hero) if he's going to do something outrageous give him a very good motivation
for doing it - so he can defend his behaviour to himself, and the heroine and
the reader. Of course, that doesn't mean the heroine's going to buy it (and in
my books they frequently don't), but that's all part of the delicious conflict
you want to get steaming between these two.



But the most important thing about all my heroes and all the great heroes
I've read in M&B, is that they have to be individuals. They have to be fully
rounded characters, not just a collection of alpha traits. You have to fall in
love with this guy - and the reader has to fall for him too. So don't let
yourself fall into the trap of thinking that because he's an alpha guy he can't
have a sense of humour, or be a fantastic cook, or be kind to children and
puppies. Don't let his alpha-ness limit you in creating your hero... Use it to
make him that extra bit more gorgeous and larger than life, because let's face
it these are romantic fantasies - and the more romantic the better.

Heidi's next book is due out in June in the UK and September in the US and is called Hot-Shot Tycoon, Indecent Proposal.

Daisy Dean, a lively, fun-loving and ever so slightly reckless Portobello Road stall holder has climbed into her mysterious new neighbour's back garden in search of her landlady's much-loved cat. She's already decided that said neighbour is an arrogant jerk even though she's never actually met him. After all the guy hasn't responded to any of her many messages about the cat, or even thanked her for the home-made brownies she dropped off with his cleaning lady a few days before to welcome him to the neighbourhood.
With men like that, trepassing is perfectly justified. And anyway, she's pretty sure he's not at home.
Unfortunately, what Daisy doesn't know is that Cormac Brody, the millionaire property developer next door, isn't only at home, he's nursing a bad case of the flu, and after his rough upbringing on the mean streets of Dublin, he doesn't take too kindly to people who sneak onto his private property.
Oh boy, is Daisy in for a nasty surprise....

PS If you're missing me - and you want to know where I am then I'm blogging on the Pink Heart Society Blog today about one of my favourite authors.

All About Alphas 2 - Mills and Boon Checklists

Over on the Mills & Boon Community site editor Jenny Hutton has given this checklist of the way that the Alpha hero appears in all the different line.

So you'll see that he is not just the sort of man people immediately describe - usually based on their image of a Modern/Presents hero - as an Alpha hero being something of a domineering bully.

I'm giving you this as it appears from the editors though I'm just going to say a couple of things where the Modern Romance/Presents Alpha is concerned - and I'm going to be honest here.

One is that, for me, "believing in himself and the reach of his influence" isn't actually being arrogant. It can appear that way at times - particularly to the heroine when she and her situation conflict with and challenge that innate sense of self that the Presents hero has. But in my book he's probably entitled to that sense of self - he's built himself up to the position he's in, and he has earned it. So I'm not going to use the word arrogant - sure of himself, fine. For me, it's something like the comment on Honour for the Historical stories - the Modern/Presents hero can come across as arrogant in that challenged situation but he's not trampling other people underfoot arrogant.

And I would want to add that, just as with the Romance hero, that my Modern/Presents hero - darn it - any hero - needs to have that Code of Honour - that strong sense of right and wrong that is the foundation of the way he lives.It's when that core of honour is - I'm going to say that word again - challenged that he comes out fighting.

OK so here's the list:

Mills & Boon Modern Romance®
Commanding: he’s always in control and calling the shots – except when the heroine finally tames him…

Demanding: he’s come a long way since his emotionally or financially impoverished childhood; he wants it done, and he wants it done now!

Arrogant: he believes in himself and the reach of his influence, totally – until the battle with his feelings for the heroine begins…

Passionate: sensual and sexy, he uses his charm and power to get what he wants, though his need for the heroine may ultimately prove stronger

Status: impossibly wealthy, probably self-made; often has celebrity status in the media. The ruler of all he surveys, be it a company or a country

Mills & Boon Modern Heat®
Young: he’s aged between 25 and 35 and has yet to settle down

Confident: he knows what he wants and has a good idea of how he’ll get it; he knows he’s attractive and relishes challenges – he might have a extreme hobby

Easy-going: he plays as hard as he works, knowing how and when to have a good time. He doesn’t sweat the small stuff…

Accessible: he’s very approachable, but his physical presence and his confidence and charm make him stand out from the crowd

Status: he hails from all walks of life and can have any level of success and wealth

Mills & Boon Historical Romance®
Strong: he could appear unyielding, determined to claim the heroine but he would lay down his life for her

Charming: he can be a rake, a cad or a bounder – but ultimately he’s redeemed by the heroine who’s the love of his life

A Man of Action: he can lead armies into battle, or influence political or local events

Honourable: he may have killed on the battlefield, but is fair in his treatment of his men

Status: either financially, politically or militarily powerful; often a member of the first estate

Mills & Boon Romance®
Tower of Strength: he has a steely core, is not easily manipulated and uncompromising about the things that matter

Aspirational: the guy with whom women aspire to spend the rest of their lives; definitely Mr Right

Code of Honour: he has a strong sense of right and wrong, is reasonable and fair

Sense of Humour: he can laugh at himself and life; he’s often understated and modest in manner

Status: Definitely successful, can be wealthy or just comfortably off; perhaps a specialist in his field

Mills & Boon Medical Romance®
Dedicated: his primary objective is to save lives; he has high standards and expects the same of others

Strong but Caring: he’s approachable and has a great bedside manner – he shows compassion and passion to his patients and the heroine

A Mover of Mountains: he will do whatever it takes, and then some, to save a life or resolve a medical issue. A man of action

Respected: he’s well respected in his field and is committed, honourable and human

Status: a senior member of the medical profession, or has a connection with medical profession, e.g. senior firefighter

Hurricanes and Heat

Firstly - Hurricanes -

Everyone in the path of the brute that Gustav has turned into is in my thoughtd. I hope that the next few days pass off as peacefully as can be and with as little damage and destruction as possible. I have reader friends in New Orleans and you will be specially in my thoughts.



And Linda - if Gustav damages your second copy of the 12 Point Guide again - I will make sure you get a replacement!


Heat - sadly, not here. Today has had the sort of torrential rain that has me thinking of building an ark, just in case.

No - the Heat in question is the Modern Heat line of romances.

As you may know, over on the I heart Presents blog, HMB have announced a writing contest for aspiring authors aiming at the Modern Heat line.

Because the Modern Heat books are published as Harlequin Presents in America, there has been quite a lot of discussion about why a 'MH' book is not a Presents and what makes the differences.

Discussion has centred on the type of hero and heroine and the description that editors once gave MH as 'Presents younger sister'.

Personally, I've felt that the descriptions and explanations given haven't really hot the mark in pinpointing just where the difference lies.

The point isn’t an alpha hero both series have that. The MH hero may be younger and perhaps on his way up but he's still alpha.

It isn't in the heroines - I’m not happy at all with the idea that there is a ‘Presents Heroine’ in a way that seems to imply that the Presents Heroine is passive, weak even, and lets the hero take charge, not matter what. the truth is that, as in any form of fiction, every heroine in every book is who she is in her own unique way. Some are milder mannered – some may take on the hero in a more confrontational manner. Some are sassy, some are uptight, some are sexually confident, some are not – some are assertive to the point of aggression – some need to take things in a less confrontational way. That's what makes each story different.

No the difference is that , to coin a phrase – the Modern/Presents book has an 'alpha conflict'. A high octane, fiercely intense conflict. It has a situation in which both the hero and the heroine have so much to lose that they can’t totally focus on anything else. There is so much at stake – outside their relationship and in – that they are driven to intense emotions that are not normally part of every day life – they are in a time of crisis and as people in crisis react they react in extremes.

Irresistible charm and humour are not the exclusive attribute of a MH hero. It’s the situation that the H&h of a Presents novel are in – both of them – that sparks reactions that sometimes don’t give time for charm or humour from either of them. It all depends on the book, the heroine, the hero – but most important of all it depends on the conflict.

And that, for me is where the big difference between an Modern and a Modern Heat story lies. A Modern Heat hero, or a MH heroine could probably be a Modern/Presents hero given the sort of conflict that a Modern/Presents author would put them in ....

As the editors are always saying – it’s all in the execution.



The official rules for the Feel the Heat contest can be found here.