I recall meeting you briefly when you came over to the Isle of Man for an M&B writer’s workshop at Crogga, while they were filming “Island of Dreams”. Do you remember that?

“Presents” has been an incredibly successful line. There are many authors from around or even before my mother’s time whose books are worth collecting and reading. I sometimes find them in secondhand shops. Karen Van der Zee, for instance. Some of them were so unique and colourful, and the writing astonishingly deft and evocative.

Of course, “Leopard in the Snow” has remained one of my own touchstone romances, like many of my mother’s. I’m writing a Regency at the moment: my irascible hero has a scar and a war-wound limp, and is often inapproachable, very much in the style of Mather’s infamous “Leopard”. Like others here, though, I thought the film wasn’t very effectively done at all.

But perhaps an intense inner conflict between two characters can be hard to portray on screen, even though it works beautifully on the page. Something like Pride & Prejudice works on screen because of the many other characters weaving in and out of the main romance. Ditto with the recent Twilight vampire saga. Just goes to show that, in the age of the screen, we still need books …

I have to confess…I picked the Leopard in the Snow cover to put up just because the title sounded cool. Guess it stands out both in memory *and* to someone who hasn’t read it before! I had no idea it was made into a movie, either. Hmmm, wonder if I could find a copy….
~Amy

I’m thrilled beyond words to write for Presents! This is truly a dream come true.

Though of course being a UK reader, I never knew about Presents books until I was actually published – I just read the Mills & Boon books that were available – and not split up into different lines.

But I loved Anne Mather’s books, whatever label they were publisehd under. I loved Leopard in the Snow but hated the film version which had none of the power of the book. But it was another Anne Mather story – Witchstone – that got me back into reading romances afterthe demands of university and my first job had taken me away from them.

It was only when I found out about the way the books were published as Presents or Romance that I realised that the authors I’d been following all along – Anne M, Charlotte Lamb, Robyn Donald – were in fact Presents authors and now I’m so proud to be counted amongst their number.

Here’s to the next 60 years!

Kate

What a success story this line has been. You encapsulated the allure of the line when you referred to dramatic, sophisticated and sexy stories. Those are the hallmarks of Presents that hook me as a reader again and again, drawing me into passionate stories that satisfy and at the same time make me want to reach for another as soon as I’ve finished reading.

It’s an absolute honour to be writing for my favourite line with so many terrific, talented authors. I still grin at the thought that I’m a Presents author. It’s a dream come true.

Reading Presents is a joy. Writing for it is a, as Lynn says, an honor. I am as thrilled to see each of my books on the stands as I was when I saw the first one, more than 20 years ago.

With you, Anne, on it being a real thrill to write for Presents – and I hope I give my readers that same feeling of magic that the authors have always given me.

I wasn’t an early reader of Presents as I had no time to read at all in the 70s. But I found them in the 80s and remember falling in love with some early Anne Mather and Charlotte Lamb titles, then avidly gobbling up as many new ones by other authors as I could find.

I did love Leopard in the Snow and still have my copy of it.

The beauty of so many Presents books is the power of the narrative and the characters in the hands of very compelling writers. I’ve got a lot of keepers because of writers who grabbed me and I simply went willingly wherever they took me. It’s always been an honor to write for the line.