Hold on to your helmet: it's love in a cold war climate

Men read books about war, not love. Women read books about love, not war. True? No - not when they read a book published by Mills & Bang, the world's only purveyor of military romance, where the killing and the kissing go hand in hand!

All Mills & Bang novels, tough yet tender as they are, are designed to appeal to both men and women - and here are another three titles fresh out for autumn which we can confidently predict will be on everyone's Christmas shopping list!

'Love in the Hills' by Sally Larousse

Captain Humphrey Pomsett walked his men towards the top of the hill, then ordered them to rest for a moment. They were a good squad, but they were tired and wet and utterly fed up. So would most people be, if you were on the seventh day of manoeuvres in mid-Wales, one of the rainiest and bumpiest places you could find in Britain.

When he thought the time had come to move on, he ordered them to charge over the top of the hill, against an imaginary enemy. But there was no need to imagine anything. There, over the brow of the hill, stood a woman, barring their path.

"We don't want you here!" she was shouting. "Go back to England, you warmongering, whoremongering bastards! You've invaded us too often already! Go home, and leave our hills and women alone!"

"Who on earth is this, Sergeant?" said Captain Pomsett, wonderingly.

"Rosie Pritchard, sir," said Sergeant Dodds. "Bit of a firebrand, sir. Welsh Nat. Always tries to disrupt our exercises. Basically, sir, she's a loony."

But Captain Pomsett thought differently. He thought she was magnificent. He thought he should have a conciliatory talk with her, later, about Anglo-Welsh differences. And just how, after many such private talks, they settled their differences in a very old-fashioned way, is the story which will keep you on the edge of your picnic rug.

'How Green Was My Valet' by Rosie Parade

"May I have a word with you, sir?," said Sergeant York.

"Of course, Sergeant," said General Foster. "What is it?"

"It's about Trooper Pyne, sir."

"What about him?"

"The thing is, I don't think he's a him. I think he's a her."

General Foster felt his heart crumble. At last, his desperate ruse had been found out. He had been so in love with Natasha, the wild Bosnian beauty, that he had persuaded her to enlist as a man in his regiment. And they had nearly got away with it. Now he decided, on impulse, to take the sergeant into his confidence. He sat him down and explained quietly that Trooper Pyne was actually the love of his life, and, well, a girl.

"You don't look very happy about it," said the general.

"I'm not, sir," said the sergeant.

"Why not?"

"Because, sir, my feelings for you are more complicated than you might imagine."

Blimey, thought the general. His sergeant was batting for the other side! This was a tricky one!

And so it proved. You will be spellbound as you learn how this fragile ménage à trois finally sorted itself out in a tense search-and-destroy mission near Cirencester, from which only two people could come back alive.

'Vertigo for Two' by Glynis Cartridge

Stephen had thought he was alone in the skies, falling below the secluded canopy of his parachute. This is what he had joined the Paras for. A bit of peace and quiet. Yet, suddenly, he felt he had company. He looked up and saw another 'chute floating towards him.

"What the blazes...!" he exclaimed, incredulous.

The unknown parachutist came nearer. As if in a dream, he saw curls tumbling out from under a helmet and realised it was a woman. She was dangerously close.

"What the bloody hell are you up to?" he shouted.

"Paratroop Military Speed Police!" she shouted back. "You're doing more than 30mph over a built-up area!

"You stupid bloody fool!" cried Stephen as she drifted past. It was also what he said when they landed and Para Policewoman Ursula Flint handed him a ticket. But it was not what he said when, after a terrible moment over Salisbury Plain in which they both nearly died, their hearts went into free fall together. And it was not what he said when he and she finally walked down the aisle together in the Church of St Icarus and took their vows.