Sometimes we all need a little escape from real life and the 24-hour news cycle, especially when the tragic updates are just relentless. Even daily stressors can take their toll. We need a break from the stress, the fear, the hopelessness (and the dishes, the laundry, and traffic, etc, etc.). So—like millions of other readers around the world—I turn to romance novels.

Call them silly, smutty, trashy, escapist, or frivolous—sometimes that’s exactly what a girl (or guy!) needs. For a few hours, I can become so absorbed in a story that I forget everything else.

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Writer Ida Pollock was today hailed the world’s oldest romantic novelist as it was revealed she is still producing steamy books at the age of 105.

Ida has written 123 novels during her prolific career - many of them tales of virgins, chaste kisses and dashing male heroes.

Ida has sold millions of books over nine decades with risque titles such as ‘White Heat’ and ‘Interlude for Love’.

She has millions of fans but has largely avoided the limelight by writing under ten different pseudonyms.

Ida has written 70 books for Mills & Boon under the names Susan Barrie, Pamela Kent, Rose Burghley or Mary Whistler.

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While the arrival of a knight-in-shining-armor in the middle of a crisis might be a welcome sight and being carried off to a carefree life of wealth and pleasure might even be a secret dream, most of us are going to find romance in other ways. It’s going to be in that sweet, unexpected comment that makes us smile or the little gesture that demonstrates just how much we’re appreciated. Our hero is going to be the guy who notices that something needs fixing and just does it or who plans a special date that might mean nothing to another woman, but means the world to us. It may even be the man who stands by, ready to help in a crisis, but wise enough to know how much we need to discover we can depend on ourselves.

I think our view of romance — what we want and what we need — changes over time. Age and experience kick in. While the very young want the heart-stopping excitement and passion, in time we come to appreciate a good laugh, respect, and common interests.

The one thing that never fades is the longing to see “that” look in someone’s eyes, the twinkle that makes us feel desirable and alive. I think that’s one reason so many of my books are multi-generational, with people of all ages discovering that a new romance may be just around the corner. I believe in those possibilities that remind us life can be worth living till the very last breath we take.

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Beyond Bodice-Rippers: How Romance Novels Came to Embrace Feminism

“Bodice-rippers,” the most famous term associated with the romance genre are, according to the book Beyond Heaving Bosoms: “”typically set in the past, and the hero is a great deal older, more brutal, and more rapetastic than the heroine.” The heroines were young, virginal women whose purity was of paramount importance to their worth. The rapist-turned-true-love hero was a standard character.

Bodice-rippers and their contemporary counterparts were popular during the 1970s, occupying the same cultural space as the feminist movement but seeming to represent its polar opposite. As feminists were fighting patriarchy, romance novels were propping it up. Despite a major shift in the genre in the late 1980s and early 1990s that saw the near-disappearance of rape and the emergence of much stronger, more modern heroines, the idea remains that feminists and romance readers exist on opposite ends of the spectrum. This is not the case.

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You thought you were safe. You thought you’d taken every careful precaution. Fool! No one can escape the clutches of Nicholas Sparks. The author of hit romance novels, such as “The Notebook,” is currently creating three TV shows for channels TNT, ABC, and Lifetime, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The movie versions of Sparks’ novels have been almost uniformly successful, in some cases extraordinarily so — “Message in a Bottle,” “A Walk to Remember,” “Nights in Rodanthe,” “Dear John,” “The Last Song.” The films have modest budgets compared to the rest of Hollywood, beefcakey male stars in the leading roles, and ooze the kind of romantic melodrama that turns theaters into one giant tear-stained Oprah couch.

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I leave the country for ten days and WHAT? NO! WAY! A long—oh, so long—awaited screen adaptation of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander is in the works? This sassenach is very excited!