Is this week's news that Mills & Boon, the publisher of romantic novels where women are ladies and men are men, is teaming up with the Rugby Football Union a sign that romantic fiction needs new heroes? The series of books will feature well-built, jet-set rugby players. This is a sport untainted so far by the sex scandals that have plagued the football scene.

Over the years, says Jenny Hutton, commissioning editor, the novels' heroes have reflected the changing face of the alpha male. When ER hit TV screens, so the brooding Mills & Boon male donned his surgical scrubs.