Times are definitely changing when the heroine of a romance novel is a butt-kicking sexy vamp who doesn’t need a man to fix her problems.

Harlequin Mills & Boon, which sell 160 million books a year with a readership of more than 50 million women worldwide, are famous for giving women an easy read, filled with old-fashioned romance.

Their time-honoured winning formula has always been based around trouble-fraught relationships between handsome, successful and masterful men and headstrong attractive women who are usually in need of some kind of rescuing. Until now.

In Mills & Boon new Bombshell range, to be released in Australia on January 16, romance is only a small part of the equation and the heroines are anything but weak.

"They don’t need a man in their life, but that doesn’t mean they can’t fall in love along the way," Mills & Boon managing director Michelle Laforest said.

She said readers could expect to meet smart, self-reliant career women who could handle situations and think for themselves - usually with a black-belt in martial arts thrown in.

But does that mean a societal shift in the way women are, or want to be, regarded in modern day life?

Ms Laforest said the company kept its fingers on the pulse of society and was simply responding to the demand created by post-feminist characters such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sydney Bristow from the Television show Alias and Jordan Cavanaugh from Crossing Jordan.

"These books are designed to appeal to a new generation of women whose role models are quite different from those of women 15 years ago," she said.

Ms Laforest said readers were more likely to meet a former spy-turned police officer who could take out a guy in hand-to-hand combat or a night-club owner who battled drug lords than a secretary who falls in love with her boss.

Queensland University of Technology creative writing and cultural studies lecturer Dr Glen Thomas said romance novels had always reflected the changing values of society.

"It’s a bit of a myth really that Mills & Boon or romance novels are stuck in the past, that’s not true at all - romance novels always keep up with the times," he said.

Dr Thomas, who is studying the Mills & Boon phenomena, said the gradual shift in societal values had been evident from the first Harlequin romance published in 1957.

He said it had become particularly obvious after the feminist movement gained momentum in the 1960s when most Mills & Boon heroines changed from willingly giving up their jobs for marriage to becoming fully fledged career women (albeit rarely high-fliers) complete with goals and aspirations.

Dr Thomas said the Bombshell range, however, was a new level of post-feminist evolution.

He said not only were these women beautiful and sexy but they actively sought trouble out - intent on fixing up a few of the world’s ills.

"They’ve clearly tapped into those kinds of ideas of female role models that you get in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Alias - those kinds of role models where you have strong independent women who go out and do stuff," he said.

Ms Laforest said Mills & Boon stalwarts should not despair because all their favourite traditional romances would still be available.

"There’s already 12 different types of romance that you can read and that we have a very solid readership for - this will simply be another addition," she said.

But Ms Laforest said across Harlequin’s entire romance range one thing one never change - a guaranteed happy ending.

Dr Thomas said this form of escapism was a big part of the attraction for romance readers, especially in the current world climate of instability.

He said with divorce rates at an all-time high, and disaster in the news, women needed the control that comes from knowing in one form at least everything was going to work out.

"Too often that’s something that real life will deny you."