Lyn Vernham (Choc Lit’s Marketing Director), and authors Jane Lovering, Sue Moorcroft, Christina Courtenay and Christine Stovell.

The Choc Lit authors immediately made a good impression on the assorted romantic novelists entering their session, because they greeted us with a box of Cadbury’s Heroes and a mesmerising slide-show of celebrity heroes.  All tastes were catered for, from Taylor Lautner and Zac Efron through Hugh Jackman and Viggo Mortensen to David Mitchell and, um, Tony Robinson.

Choc Lit authors Jane Lovering, Sue Moorcroft, Christina Courtenay and Christine Stovell then gave an entertaining presentation explaining which chocolate they’d compare the heroes of their books to, before Lyn Vernham, the marketing director of Choc Lit, explained a little more about the Choc Lit ethos and answered our questions.

Choc Lit specialises in romantic fiction which includes the (always irresistible, please!) hero’s point of view.  Books should be 70,000 to 100,000 words long, complete and previously unpublished.  Once they contract a book, Choc Lit seek to invest in and build authors’ careers and for this reason they ask for rights of first refusal to subsequent books.

Choc Lit has two main lines: Light Choc Lit, which publishes entertaining love stories with happy endings—both contemporary and historical—and Dark Choc Lit, which features love stories with a darker side, such as contemporary paranormal and Gothic-flavoured historical.  They are also open to fantasy.

Written by Imogen Howson