LIKE a sturdy marriage, the bond endures even if the initial blush of the heady romance has faded.

Mills & Boon, the famed publisher of escapist romance, celebrates its centenary this year. The company is still going strong in its native Britain where, the Guardian newspaper reported recently, a Mills & Boon paperback is sold every 6.6 seconds.

Another good gauge, the report adds, is to compare sales figures. The pulp romances sell 200 million copies worldwide every year while the phenomenal Harry Potter series has sold a mere 400 million over 11 years.

While the books have a loyal following in Singapore, booksellers and distributors here say Mills & Boon has lost its lustre over the years.

A spokesman for Times The Bookshop says: 'The sales of romance books take up a small percentage of overall sales and the sales of Mills & Boon titles are negligible.'

Ms Melissa Low, 46, who co-owns second-hand store Sunny Bookshop as well as the San chain of second-hand bookshops, adds: 'I would say that over the past 10 years, rentals of Mills & Boon have dropped about 50 per cent.'

Although romances provide a healthy percentage - about 30 to 40 per cent - of Sunny's brisk rental business, Ms Low no longer stocks the full range of Mills & Boon.

Nowadays, she carries only a few series, each of which has eight to 10 titles.

The reasons for its decline are varied. Ms Low says: 'Some readers think the books are too lightweight, too short. Readers now are more sophisticated, they prefer the thicker books.'

Mills & Boon fan Leeanna Christou, in her 40s, also points out that sales here could be lower compared to Britain simply because Mills & Boon titles are so cheap and easily available over there.

The Singaporean nurse, who has been reading Mills & Boon since she was a teenager, says: 'I stopped reading for a while but when I went to Britain for advanced nursing studies, I picked up the habit again because they were so cheap.

'The books cost just ?1.99 (S$5.50). If you subscribe, you get free books and you can also buy them at train stations.'

Mr Kenny Chan, store director of Kinokuniya Books, notes that changing industry practices might also have contributed to the publisher's waning popularity here.

Once, bookshops would shelve books according to publishers, which meant that Mills & Boon titles, with their signature blue covers, would stand out among the shelves.

Nowadays, books are shelved alphabetically according to author. Mr Chan adds: 'That dilutes the branding for Mills & Boon.'

Another factor which contributes to the dilution of the brand is the packaging. Whereas once Mills & Boon were practically all identikit - slender tomes with a blue cover illustrated by endless variations of embracing couples - it now publishes 11 separate series, each in a different colour, catering to increasingly niche tastes.

The more traditional Romance series, for example, is packaged in pink while the naughtier Blaze with more graphic descriptions is bound in red.

There are also themed series, such as the doctor-nurse-centred Medical series and the Historical series which features Period romances. This year, the publisher is introducing another series, Nocturne, which will focus on paranormal affairs.

Besides different series, Mills & Boon also publishes a more contemporary-looking imprint, the commercial fiction line Mira with sleeker cover designs featuring inanimate objects and landscapes.

But while there are new variations on the theme of boy meets girl, boy loses girl and boy gets girl, the core formula stays steadfastly traditional.

Lawyer Aileen Tan, 50, a fan of the Blaze and Medical series, explains the evergreen appeal of Mills & Boon: 'Blaze is rather racy and the Medical series got a more popular update with TV shows such as Grey's Anatomy, but I'm a sucker for the formulaic happy endings.'

Ms Anzli Some, 24, a wealth management trainee who has been reading the romances since she was 14, adds: 'Call it escapism. Singapore isn't exactly rife with handsome men.'

This explains why hardcore devotees such as Mrs Christou still reach for the old faithful when they need to unwind with a fun read.

Sexist and outdated

Mrs Christou, who can finish one Mills & Boon title in two hours, admits frankly that her husband laughs at her for reading such pulpy stuff but defends it as 'light reading and it's relaxing'.

Fans are well aware of the age-old criticisms that the books are pulpy, sexist and outdated.

The stigma attached to them explains why Ms Tan refuses to have her picture taken for this story.

She says: 'I have no qualms admitting to friends that I read some of the titles, but not to everyone in Singapore who reads the papers, because some of the titles are a bit dirty.

'The books are a guilty pleasure.'

But fans still pick them up for the respite they offer from real life and the unfailingly satisfying promise of a happy ending.

As Ms Anzli says: 'It's sappy and cheesy but cute, as long as you go into it knowing it's not literature.'

- Additional reporting by Chung Ming See and Bernard Koh