Bodice rippers Inc

Once the lolly water of women's reading, romance fiction is now raunchier than ever and in big demand, writes ELEANOR BLACK.

Turning on her pink high-heeled sandal, Barbara Clendon moved towards the stairs. A pretty blonde with wide blue eyes and a curvaceous figure, she dressed to her best advantage, favouring bright colours and flashes of leg.

Scanning the bookshop with satisfaction, she noted gaps on the shelves which needed attention. She still couldn't believe how well the business was running. It just went to show that when you loved your work, success followed.

If only she could manage him as well. The cloud of a scowl passed over her face as she thought of the dark man sitting in the office, concentrating on his task as if she weren't even there, a hot pink presence in his doorway.

"Darling, can you come and talk to the reporter, please?"

It is easy when talking to Clendon - who with husband Peter runs Barbara's Books, the country's largest mail-order bookshop specialising in romance titles - to get caught up in the soft-focus glamour of her life.

Like the heroine of all good love stories, the bubbly fortysomething with sparkly toenails and a girlish giggle is charming, with an unusual lifestyle and a devoted man who opens doors for her.

She is also an astute businesswoman who knows her product and how to best match it with people hungry for a little romance in an age when it seems scarce.

Her South Auckland shop doubles as a warehouse storing thousands of escapist volumes - from classic bodice-rippers to futuristic love stories and tales of romance among toothy vampires - which are boxed up and dispatched to all parts of New Zealand, the South Pacific, Australia and as far as the United States.

Barbara's Books has 1000 mail-order customers, 700 of whom regularly buy in bulk, and another 100 devotees who come into the shop in a Manukau industrial subdivision - just down the road from a forklift supplier - to load up the boots of their cars with romantic fancy.

If the numbers seem scant, consider this: each week her customers breeze through three to 12 books at an average $22 apiece. Even category romances, the shorter love stories which are written in sets, are $10 each.

The love habit is not cheap.

"Romance readers are picky. They know what they like and they want a lot of what they like," says Clendon, who whizzes through five to 20 romances a week.

While New Zealand statistics are hard to come by, in the US - possibly the romance fiction capital - demand is huge. In 2000, the last year for which figures are available, sales totalled US$1.37 billion ($3.16 billion) and 2289 new titles were released. The Romance Writers of America, an association of romance authors, estimates that 55 per cent of all paperbacks sold in the US are romance titles.

Clendon, who is president of Romance Writers of New Zealand, says that proportionally New Zealanders are just as voracious. Barbara's Books sells roughly 100,000 new romance books every year, plus a smattering of science fiction, fantasy titles and used books.

Before becoming a romance diva, Clendon spent much of her time scouring second-hand bookshops for love stories she hadn't read. When the owner of a book exchange in Papatoetoe offered her a part-time job, she felt like she had been given "the keys to the candy shop". It did not take long to convince the young mother of two to buy the business.

Already an expert in the field from years of avid reading, Clendon found her customers soon came to trust her judgment in choosing books for them. She had a knack for knowing what authors and genres would suit which readers. She had found her niche and the shop paid for itself within 15 months.

Still, Clendon found herself running out of personal reading material, and six years later she and her husband bought an Otahuhu bookshop, the only romance stockist she knew of that sold books she hadn't read. The accelerated success of both shops - and the insatiable reading appetites of her regular customers - gave her the idea of importing new Harlequin and Avon romances from the US.

This move proved so popular that the Clendons developed a monthly catalogue, which they personalise with folksy letters called "Barbara's Corner" and "Peter's Page" updating customers on their family gatherings and book-related events.

After Peter Clendon has put together each month's typewritten catalogue, Barbara Clendon adds handwritten notes to highlight her favourite offerings, such as "okay, I might need this", "sexy fun" and "at last ... putting men in their place".

It was impossible! How could she concentrate on her work when he was so close, almost unbearably close, watching her every move? It was infuriating. Barbara tried to concentrate on what the reporter was saying but she could not help sneaking a peek at the brooding bulk of a man sitting opposite her, one leg casually slung over the other as if he did this sort of thing every day.

It was almost as if he were reading her mind, because at that moment Peter, the man who took her breath away when she met him aged 16 and still quickened her pulse now, turned to Barbara with a warm smile.

One of Clendon's most ardent fans is Melissa May, who spends about $150 a month at Barbara's Books. The 35-year-old personal assistant works in a busy office, and looks forward to home time each day, when she curls up with a book instead of flicking on the television.

"It's stress relief, a good step out of real life," she says.

"You'd be surprised how many people read romance - clandestine romance readers."

When May receives mail orders there are always a couple of extra books tucked in which Clendon thinks she would like. She is rarely wrong.

A year ago the Clendons consolidated their business, shifting everything into the Manukau warehouse where they also have their office and store Barbara's personal stash of books, 12 or 13 shelves full of paperbacks conveniently situated in a sun trap with a cosy sofa.

Clendon is proud of the fact that she has never recommended a book she didn't like, and of her encyclopedic knowledge of romantic fiction. You see, there is a lot more to romance than most of us think. Not every love story you read is a romance.

To qualify, a romance must feature two people who get together after surviving some sort of crisis or conflict. It can be funny, historical or set in outer space but it must end happily with a union which the reader believes is going to last. As the Romance Writers of America put it, it must mete out "emotional justice".

The ways this can happen are as vast as the imaginations of the army of people who write romantic fiction, but there are seven major genres: contemporary romance set after the World Wars; historical romance set before the World Wars; inspirational romance with a spiritual component; paranormal romance featuring magic and mystical characters; Regency romance set in early 1800s England; romantic suspense; and time-travel romance.

These days romances are less likely to end with a chaste kiss than a raunchy bedroom episode, but the sentiment is still there, if seemingly overshadowed by the lust.

"The only difference between a romance and a Penthouse," says Barbara, "is in a romance they say please and thank you."

The people who read romantic fiction are just as diverse as the books themselves, say the Clendons, although American statistics would suggest the most likely romance aficionado is a white, middle-aged married woman who has a white-collar job or works in the home. Nine per cent of American romance readers are men. And 100 per cent of romance readers are irked by the assumption that just because they like their reading material to come with a guaranteed happy ending that they are dumb.

Twenty-two years in the business have taught the couple that if you can't judge a book by its cover you equally can't predict who is going to read it. They have welcomed tattooed gang members with a penchant for Mills and Boon into their shops, and count a man in his 60s as one of their best customers.

For Clendon, a dedicated people-watcher who counts a significant proportion of her customers as personal friends, there could not be a better career. And the husband is more than satisfactory as well.

Barbara looked around at all the work yet to be done and instead of feeling overwhelmed she smiled. She could do it tomorrow. For now she was going to find her husband. Sometimes she forgot they had been together so long. Imagine! Thirty-one years of marriage and he still held her hand when they went to the movies, still made her breakfast once a week, still surprised her with flowers.

Walking through the rows of bookshelves, making a mental "to do" list, she spotted him, so tall and so sure. She looked up at this man, the man for her, and looked into the future.