When I was much (much) younger — due to a large company fronted by a mouse— I had quite the romantic ideal in my head. Due to my obsession with the film Sleeping Beauty I was living under the illusion that one day I would be happily wandering about a forest when a dashing prince would come, rest his eyes on me, in that brief glance fall madly in love with me and then, later on when everything went pear-shaped, save me. At the time it seemed like a pretty reasonable expectation.

Now — having ventured on numerous, unfruitful nature hikes — I realise how jaded I have become. I would settle for someone having a job over being a prince and I certainly wouldn’t allow myself to be whisked away by a stranger who was staring at me through trees.

Hence my love of the wonderful Avon imprint. It is so easy to become disenfranchised with romance and it is certainly too easy to bypass the idea altogether. When your days don’t have enough hours and are full to the brim with things one must do, instead of things one wants to do, picking up a great story by Anna Campbell, Julia Quinn or any of the fantastic novelists that are under the Avon umbrella can give you that much needed respite from the working day and even encourage you to inject a little ‘real’ romance into your routine.

On an end note — from my younger days to present day —I never would have reacted in the sweet manner that Aurora does when she is woken from her sleep by the Prince. To wake me from a nap implies an affection for horror over romance.