London - When Justine Elizabeth was a little girl, her mother would read her fairy tales.
Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White - Justine would listen to them all and go to bed dreaming of a world where she was a princess and Prince Charming would take her away to a magic palace.
As she got older, her reading moved on to Wuthering Heights, Pride And Prejudice and Romeo And Juliet. They didn’t always have happy endings, but there was always passionate, explosive love.
Now a 24-year-old advertising executive living in London, Justine still loves getting under the covers with anything from Jackie Collins to Cecilia Ahern, Mills & Boon to the Twilight books.
“It’s an ideal, fantasy world,” she says. “We all want to be loved and protected. In these books, the men are always strong, handsome providers and everything is done for mad, crazy love.”
But could Justine’s reading habits be ruining her chances of finding love in real life?
A controversial article published in the US last month thinks so. It argued that romantic novels fuel unrealistic expectations about love, and are as addictive and as damaging to relationships as pornography.
It warned that women can become “dangerously unbalanced by these books’ entrancing but distorted messages”, claiming that there are parallels between what happens to a man when he watches pornography and what happens to a women when she reads a romance book.
According to US psychologist Dr Juli Slattery, who is quoted in the article: “There is a neuro-chemical element with men and visual porn, but anemotional element with women and these novels.”
Dr Slattery says she is seeing more and more women who are “clinically addicted to romantic books”, and that for many women these novels promote dissatisfaction with their real relationships.
The article has prompted an outraged reaction among romance fans, but could there be a nugget of truth in it? Can you become “addicted” to the highs and lows of a Danielle Steele novel? And could a weakness for Cecilia Ahern make you look at your husband in a new, entirely unflattering light?
“The word addiction is strong, but it could become an unhealthy preoccupation,” says sex addiction expert Paula Hall.
Newly single after the end of her five-year relationship, Justine wonders if her love of fictional romance damaged her real one. “Reading these books means you’re constantly striving for perfection - but nothing and no one is perfect,” she says.
“When I first met my ex-boyfriend, he was everything I wanted - he was tall, handsome, older and very well travelled.
“I thought the happy-ever-after was going to begin.
“I put too much pressure on myself, and him, to live a fairy tale,” says Justine.
“Straight away I wanted the nice house, the dogs, the Range Rover. I wanted him to tell me he loved me all the time, or come home with chocolates or flowers, but he wasn’t like that.
“He showed his love in little ways, but I wanted to be whisked off my feet.
“He told me I lived in a dream world and asked me: ‘Why can’t you be happy with what you’ve got?’ But I wasn’t and we broke up. I can now see my expectations were unrealistic.
“I think men are better able to separate what’s a sexual, physical thing - ie pornography - and their real life.
“But novels about love tap into women’s emotions and we can’t separate those.”
For years, romantic fiction has been a form of escapism for many women, with generations seeking comfort in the pastel-covered world of heaving bosoms, brooding men and never-ending love.
During the Second World War, when paper was rationed, the Ministry of Supply made an exception for Mills & Boon, because their books were considered so important for the morale of women.
Even now, despite being dismissed as old-fashioned, one Mills & Boon book is sold every three seconds in the UK - making it one of the most popular of guilty pleasures - and the market for romantic novels is worth £118 million.
But are they making our dreams unrealistic? “It’s part of human nature to want to fall in love, and romantic novels tap into this,” says Paula Hall. “But there’s a difference between fact and fiction.”
Indeed, when lecturer and writer Danuta Grey judged the Romantic Novelist of the Year competition five years ago, she asked some men to read the shortlist to get a different perspective.
In an article, she described how all the male readers were unanimous in one point: these books were fuelling unrealistic expectations of men.
She remembered a 25-year-old insurance broker, George Thompson, who held up Elizabeth Nobele’s The Tenko Club - a story about a group of friends and their romantic trysts - and raged: “Books like this killed my last relationship.”
And it’s not just novels. In 2008, a study at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University, in Scotland, found that romantic comedy films promoted unrealistic expectations when it comes to love.
They found that fans of films such as Notting Hill often fail to communicate with their partner and many held the view that if someone is meant to be with you, then they should know what you want without you telling them.
But there is another side to the story. Many people argue that far from damaging our relationships, exploring feelings through romantic novels (or indeed films) can be a good thing for your relationship.
Happily married mother-of-two Sarah Wendell, 34, started reading romances as a teenager and now reads two or three books a week.
She has just written a book in defence of the genre, called Everything I Know About Love I Learned From Romance Novels, which is published this October.
She says: “There are few places wherein women’s emotional and personal experiences and intimate sexuality are portrayed favourably. We recognise ourselves in romances, we learn to spot a good man, we see how characters overcome problems.
“It also shows us that we have to work for the happily-ever-after.
“As for these books raising unrealistic expectations, that’s rubbish. You should have high expectations for your happiness, that’s a good thing.”
Relationship expert and psychologist Jo Hemmings agrees: “We are all smart enough to know the difference between fact and fiction. People who read science fiction don’t expect Martians to land in their back garden, they just enjoy the escapism of reading.”
As for the happy endings, they can be inspiring, says Jo. “Look at the Royal Wedding. We all loved the romance and the fairy tale of it.”
“Plus, it’s much more likely you’re going to find love if you believe that it’s out there.”
There’s more good news: in 2005, studies found women who often read romance novels are less likely to divorce, and John Boon, of Mills & Boon, once said of his company: “We ought to be prescribed by the NHS. We’re better than Valium.”
So does our story have a happy ending? Justine, who still reads often, says: “I”m single and dating. I still hope Prince Charming is out there, but finding him isn”t easy.” - Daily Mail