Selling her first manuscript — Valenti’s One-Month Mistress (out in the UK Feb 09) to Harlequin Presents this March — Sabrina Philips is the line’s newest author. Having just turned twenty-four she’s also the youngest. Here, Sabrina talks about why she’s so passionate about Presents…
I first discovered Presents (or Modern as it is here in the UK) when I was thirteen and working in a charity shop on Saturday afternoons. I was sorting through a collection of pre-loved books, and remember vividly coming across a distinctive blue cover featuring a beautiful heroine and a tall, dark handsome hero. I started reading under the counter that instant, and I was immediately hooked.
Looking back now, what makes me smile as much as thinking of my younger self stumbling across a book which was to have such an impact on my future, is the fact that I wasn’t the only one reading covertly amidst the bric-a-brac and second hand clothes. I worked with another volunteer, an Indian woman in her thirties with two children who’d just moved to the UK with her husband. Our backgrounds, ages and daily lives couldn’t have been more different, but Presents spoke to us both.
And just as the books transcended boundaries in a charity shop in Guildford in the late 1990s, so they continued to do so in my own life as I went from a shy teenager with a crush on my teacher to a student at University, then to a newly married woman in my twenties. So when I got my first job in an office and found myself missing writing, it was no surprise that the stories I felt compelled to write were the ones that I’d adored for a decade.
After a couple of years of fairly solitary writing (it can be easy to forget about the rest of the world when it’s just you and your computer!), in mid-September I was delighted to be reminded of the line’s diverse appeal when Kate Walker kindly invited me have dinner in London with Presents authors Michelle Reid, Trish Morey, Jennie Lucas, India Grey, Christina Hollis, Natalie Rivers and Abby Green. (Thank you everyone for making me feel so welcome!). There we were, a mix of different ages, nationalities and personalities, each with varying levels of writing experience – but we all had the same shared passion. (And it wasn’t just for wine!)
It got me wondering about the reason behind the far-reaching appeal of Presents. There are of course numerous people much better qualified than I am to talk about the line’s success and longevity. But when I started to think about the things that appeal to me – the fantastically glamorous settings, the alpha heroes, the way the books continue to push boundaries and move with the times, I realised that at the heart of all that fantasy is the incredibly intense feelings that the hero and heroine have for each other.
When I read a Presents, I feel like I need the hero and heroine to come together for the balance of the universe to be restored. Why is that? It’s not simply because this is a romance and happy ever after is the way it has to end. It’s because in Presents, whatever the factors keeping them apart, their coming together truly matters. Not just for a practical, external reason (e.g. the hero needs a wife to secure his business deal), but internally, emotionally.
Take the hero for example. He’s rich, successful, and thinks he has everything he wants. Until he meets this woman who makes him realise he doesn’t. It would be easier for him to walk away from those feelings than confront them, but why can’t he? Because the heroine has made him see that everything he thought he wanted out of life is no longer satisfying. If he lets her go, he not only loses her, but the value of all the things that make him the alpha male he is.
The heroine’s attitude to sex is another good example of just how much the hero matters to her emotionally. She’s not the kind of woman who falls into bed with just anyone; yet often she acts out of character with the hero – how often is she swept away on such a tide of passion that she forgets about contraception, or, when the hero does slip on a condom, how often does her heart sink a little? It’s not because she’s always that reckless, or that she suddenly fancies having a baby. It’s not even just because it’s pivotal to the story line that she gets pregnant, or because having a pang of regret is a romantic convention. It’s because no matter how long she’s known this man, subconsciously she’s aware – however wrong he might seem to be – that he is also the only man on earth with whom everything feels truly right.
Which brings me back to why I think Presents is so appealing. Who doesn’t dream about finding ‘the one’, someone who inspires within us an all-consuming passion, but who also challenges everything we thought we knew about ourselves? Or if we’ve found him, who doesn’t thrill to remember when those feelings began, or enjoy reading about others coming to terms with those feelings and coming together against the odds? It’s a desire that is personal to every one of us, yet it’s also universal, timeless. And it’s made all the more high octane when played out in sophisticated, powerful settings.
So to me, it’s the intense emotional relationships explored by Presents that got me hooked a decade ago, and it’s the same reason that makes me want to write them (hopefully for decades to come!). How about you? I’d love to know if you’ve been a fan of Presents through different stages in your life, and if so, what is it that keeps you coming back for more?
Sabrina
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Sabrina, congratulations on your sale! And boy did you say it all right there.
I started reading Presents when I was about 12. I loved those stories so much, and I lost myself in the pages. I didn’t know what the heck passion was, but I know I felt strongly about the characters and the story as I read.
I drifted away from them when I grew up and went to college, but I didn’t realize how much I missed them until I started reading them again a few years ago. And now I get to join the ranks of Presents authors, and I’m just so excited to know I get to explore the intense emotion of Presents for new stories. Like you, I hope to write them for decades to come.
Congratulations and welcome again, Sabrina. For me, it’s the weaving together of unforgettable heroes, high-octane emotions and exotic locations that gives Presents its enduring appeal. Deep inside, don’t we all want to fantasise about being Cinderella for a while, swept away from the nine-to-five by our ideal man?
Hi Sabrina, a great post and well done again on your second sale! It was so lovely to meet you in London and I’m looking forward to lots more meetings along the way…
x Abby
Thanks Lynn – and may I correct the intro in that I am no longer quite the line’s newest author
Well done again – I love hearing how so many people remember reading their first Presents at a young age and the books having such an impact.
Christina and Abby – I loved meeting you both, and especially being able to ‘talk’ writing, knowing that we all sit at out own computers confronting the same issues. And Christina, I completely agree with you about the Cinderella fantasy. I worked long hours in a department store for a while and I can remember sitting in the grotty staff cafe reading Presents at lunchtimes just dreaming about being whisked away. Now I often write a scene and think – is this where I would have wanted to be taken in those precious minutes before heading back to a till and a bunch of rowdy Xmas shoppers? – just to judge whether I’ve got it right!
Hi again Sabrina. And I know I’ve said it before – but it’s worth saying again – congratulations on your book sales and welcome to the family of Presents authors It’s been great to meet you and get to know you. You didn’t have long as the newest newbie, did you?
What a great post – and I so agree with what you’ve said. I love the way that Presents books can appeal so internationally, universally and to all ages. There is something so very special about a story that – as you say – shows two people the ‘only (person) on earth with whom everything feels truly right’ and combines that with an intensity and passion that sometimes seem to set the pages smoking as you read about it. That emotional intensity has always been the hallmark of the Presents books and although I love so many other types of novels, it’s what I always come back to the Presents authors for.
It was great to have you join us at the dinner in London. I can’t wait to read your first book and see how you write your own individual version of restoring the balance of the universe (I love that idea) Because that’s the other very special thing about the Presents line – although the themes can be so much the same, the wide range of individual authors with their unique personal voices means that there is a huge variety of books within the line
Good luck with your first (and second) book. Here’s hoping they’re the start of a great writing career. And I hope I’ll see you again very soon.
Kate
Sabrina, I love your story and the passion you bring to the line! I wrote my first Mills & Boon romance at twenty. Unlike you, it took me nearly 15 years to get my first sale! (Apparently I’m a very slow learner.)
I also love how you came to the Presents family, via a writing retreat with Sharon Kendrick at a castle. That’s such a delight and so encouraging as well as romantic.
I’m looking forward to reading your first book and wish you all the very best. Welcome to this amazing, amazing line!
Best,
Jane
Sabrina, you will learn from all of these incredible Presents authors that I’m such a fan and reader of Presents and M&B. Welcome and I can’t wait to read your ‘09 release.
As Jane said, it’s “an amazing line”!
Hi Sabrina, and once again – Welcome to the group! I’m so looking forward to reading your first book. I read your post and immediately connected. I think that’s something Presents authors and readers definitely have in common – that connection to the powerful emotions in these stories and the sense of the world righting itself! Love that analogy. For me Presents stories have always been more than books to fill in time, they’re an experience and it’s amazing how many of us from so many different places and backgrounds have the desire for that same experience in common.
I’ll hope to meet you in person at one of those wonderful London author get togethers.
Annie
Congratulations Sabrina, that is so exciting for you. A sale after two years of writing! I’ve been at it for a year now, so I desperately hope that I only need another year or two before I get it right. Those rejections letters can sink my smile, but at the same time, the best things in life aren’t easy! So well done, you’ve got through the tough part: enjoy your writing and future novels!
All the best,
Madeline
Sabrina, what a great post! I’m so glad you’ve joined us!!
*hugs*
Jennie
You’ve put it so brilliantly, Sabrina. I feel like standing on my desk and cheering (but I fear it might alarm the cat…!)
Great to meet you, great to have you with us, and looking forward to meeting Valenti!
India x
Hi Sabrina,
Fabulous post, so inspiring even for an oldie like me! It’s good to be reminded now and then why I wanted to write for the Presents line.
It was great to meet you in London recently – and the rest of our motley crew of course!
Good luck with your ’09 book, I will be looking out for it in my book bundle so I should receive a copy in December. (I think)
Michelle
Thanks again for the warm welcome Kate. I really agree that one of the joys of the line is that there are a variety of different voices all approaching the classic themes in new ways, it means that Presents always feels fresh as well as timeless.
Jane – hello! Sharon Kendrick’s writing course was a brilliant experience. As well as giving me a million useful tips she made me believe I could do it if I was passionate enough and put in the hard work – a simple thing but so, so valuable. The pink castle in Scotland was pretty fabulous too…
Marilyn – hi! I have already seen your name pop up on Amazon giving lots of lovely Presents reviews so it’s great to see you here!
Hello again Annie, I’d love to meet one day. With our Classics backgrounds and a passion for Sheikhs I already feel an affinity with you
Madeline – thank you. I know I’m very lucky to have sold quite quickly, although I feel like I’ve been ‘preparing’ to write for years by reading Presents as both a fan and with an eye for how they were written. I hope you feel that although rejection is hard you’re learning in the process. I know when I look back I’m grateful I had to make changes, revise, try again because at the end of the day my writing is better for it. Good luck!
Thanks Jennie and India, loved meeting you both. India your cat comment made me laugh out loud, but my goldfish simply looked at me as if I was slightly insane…
Sabrina,
Congratulations on your sale!
Your post really nailed the reasons why I love HPs. I’ve been reading them for many, many years and they have stayed by favorite line.
While I will be the first to admit that some books hit my ‘hot buttons’ and I am not thrilled when they include adultery (especially because it is always the H), there is no other line that comes close to HPs.
You are joining a fabulous group of writers and I look forward to reading your books.
Sabrina!
Congratulations on joining the Presents Family. Can’t wait to read your story. And I too love that–putting balance back into the universe with the hero and heroine. Aw . . . how wonderful. I love the variety and the wide appeal of a Presents and that sigh the reader feels at the end when everything is right in the end–as it should be. There’s nothing like it.
Good luck!
Hugs,
MARIAN
Sabrina,
You’ve described Presents perfectly! And to add to that, it’s simply magic. My story has continued for almost four decades with Presents. I was eleven when my mother started receiving four Presents a month in the early nineteen seventies through a Harlequin subscription. Of course, I wanted to read them too.
Whereas my mother and I shared a very close relationship (me being the youngest of six children) she tried to discourage my eleven year old pleas to read them. In her efforts, the first book she gave me to read was not a Harlequin at all. But I read it and thought it was okay and I asked for another.
I don’t know if she felt bad for giving me such a lame book but she did finally give in. She gave me an Anne Mather, need I say more? I was hooked. And so was Mom. We sat in the living room reading books together for hours at a time. It truly was our favorite thing to do. When Janet Dailey came into the picture, in the silence of the room, my mother would burst out laughing. I’d look up from my own book and she would read from Ms. Dailey’s Presents, and we’d both chuckle. “Fire and Ice†was the title. If you haven’t read it, you should.
My father and other family members began to get jealous of our time reading and couldn’t understand our fascination between the pages. So when my father came home from work, we rapidly hid the books under the chair cushions, giggling like children.
Even when I moved away to a different state (California) we were still connected through Harlequin. By this time, an entire room at my mother’s house was dedicated to shelves of Presents.
Sadly a few years later, my mother passed away. I flew back for the funeral and wanted to take the books home but was only able to transport a few. Before I could retrieve the rest, my evil sister-in-law sold them.
My alpha hero is my husband who over the next years (the internet wasn’t big then) went on a mission to locate the entire collection of Anne Mather and Janet Dailey. Except Fire and Ice. That Christmas, I found it wrapped under the tree.
A few years ago, my husband and I went back to Missouri (where I was raised) and stayed at The Lake of the Ozarks near Branson. While we were there, Janet Dailey’s husband died…on my mother’s birthday.
Harlequin is magical
Thanks for the reading,
Karen in California
One final note I forgot to add. I introduced the Presents line to my youngest daughter when she was around my age when I started reading them. She is now twenty-four and still reading them.
Were liveing proof that Harlequin lasts through generations.
Karen in California
Sorry about the errors in my writing. And I want to be an author??? Just in a hurry.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Presents, Sabrina, and congratulations! Here’s to a long and happy writing career for you!
I started reading Presents just the end of last year or the beginning of this one with the Royal House of Niroli series, after always passing them over for no particular reason and sticking close to the American Romance line that I’d been reading for years. I was quick to get hooked after that, and now I regularly read Presents, more than any of Harlequin’s other offerings.
As a bit of a reversal on the usual story, I seem to have got my Grandmother hooked on them as well. It’s a fun thing to share.
VERY eloquently said Sabrina. And great comments from everyone. Very poignant story Susanna. Your husband is the sweetest for finding that very special book for you. And my mother’s Janet Dailey collection got me firmly hooked on romance, too!
As for the ‘universal’ appeal of Presents, my father never understood it. I remember him asking me why I was picking up a dozen at a time at the (same as you, Sabrina!) second hand store. I don’t know what possessed me, but I said, “You know the pictures on the covers? I want to paper my room in them.” He got the most puzzled look, maybe trying to imagine a room covered in intimate embraces or maybe trying to decide if we should have the fight about putting holes in the walls right there in the car…
Anyway, I’m sure he still doesn’t know what the appeal is for me, but he knows I’m stoked on writing them.
Thanks for a great post, Sabrina! Congratulations on your sale.
Dani
Hello, Sabrina – what a brilliant blog – I’ve loved the bit about the heroine secretly wanting to bear the hero’s child….elemental! And the over-riding feeling that love conquers all – which of course, is why people have been reading romance ever since (gropes around for vague historical reference to printing presses and fails to come up with anything)…..er, ever since man man first started chipping out crude letters on the walls of his cave!
Writing for Presents is the best job in the world.
Love
Sharon xx
Michelle, what a compliment that you found my post inspiring! It was great to meet you in London after years of enjoying your books.
Lidia, how wonderful to hear your love of Presents has endured, you’re right about it being a fabulous line of writers and it is such an honour to become a part of that.
Marian and Mulberry, thanks for your congratulations and warm welcome, and Marian I love that cathartic sigh at the end! Ahh….
Karen/Susanna, reading your story was a joy – how magical, and what a romantic hero of your own you have. I must try and get hold of a copy of Fire and Ice! I love hearing about women passing the love of Presents on, particularly through generations from mother to daughter. And how wonderful Danny that you’ve recently got your Grandmother hooked. I’m currently in the process of converting my Mum!
Dani I’m glad you enjoyed the post
My husband never used to understand why I’d want to read lots of ‘the same’ either, but I’ve always argued that it’s no different from him reading a science fiction series or the James Bonds, for example. (And now he is thoroughly re-educated!)
I adore the covers too and I have some postcard versions I found in a card shop ages ago stuck around my office. I can’t wait to find out what my first is going to look like. I knew it was going to be out in the UK in Feb but I’ve just found out it will be on the shelves in North America in March 09 – twice as exciting!
Hi Sharon! I now have a vision of cavemen chipping out erotic pictures on cave walls – an inspiration as always! Thanks again for all your priceless advice and encouragement without which I wouldn’t be here now . . .
Susanna, that’s such a lovely story about you and your mom… and your husband sounds like an absolute sweetheart!
Dani, I am now picturing a room plastered with Presents covers — I think it’s my new “happy place”…
~Amy
Dani, Sabrina & Amy, thank you all so much for your comments. Just telling my story makes me feel closer to my mother. I’m grateful you took the time to read it and share it with me.
I love this blog and wish the very best to you all,
Karen in California
Hi Sabrina! It was lovely to meet you in London the other day – congratulations again! You should get to see your cover soon – and it is sooooo exciting – congrats on the US release as well – you should get cover flats of your US releases too so you’ll eventually be able to wallpaper your entire office with them!
Hey Karen – what a wonderful hubby you have… I’m ‘the usual’ in that I started reading my Grandmothers – but a little more unusual in that my Grandmother lived with us (Grandma was our At-Home Mum, and Mum went to work!) – she passed on too many years ago now, but we still have her books and I would never, ever part with them. Like you talking about it, for me just reading those ones, seeing the covers… makes me think of her… and its lovely
Thanks Sabrina for a great read and congrats on your first sale – how exciting!!! (cant wait to read your book when it comes out in Australia
)
As an unpublished writer, I found your post inspirational and think it’s fantastic that you have made your first sale so quickly and at such a “young” age
I too love Presents and totally relate to what you wrote
Cheers, Joanne
Natalie, thank you and yes my husband is a rare gem. Many of my friends have asked me to clone him… not a chance!
Aren’t those covers special? I’m so glad you still have the original collection. It’s truly precious. I have duplicates on most but for those originals I was able to take home are truly very special.
However, the ones my husband took so much effort in finding, I’ll always treasure. How many husbands would go out and buy a gazillion books for his wife?
Thanks again for the warm comment,
Karen in California