Panned as rubbish when it was published in 1919, The Sheik spawned a legendary movie and hundreds of desert romances, despite its questionable central theme.
For all its millions of female readers, romance fiction has been dismissed as sappy, trashy and dangerous to read.
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Can a gender studies academic also write Mills and Boon novels? And can purple prose be as empowering as a pink pussy hat? The answer is yes, and yes again.