Sexpert Tracey Cox will next week be judging The Romantics, the brand new Mills & Boon awards celebrating all things romantic.

The TV favourite explains what she is expecting from the nations producers of all things heart shaped.

What can we expect from The Romantics Mills & Boon awards?

It's acknowledging and celebrating anything and all things that are romantic in the UK, organised by the UK's most successful publisher of romantic fiction.

They've come up with an awards scene that acknowledges the UK's most romantic restaurant, most romantic view, most romantic hero and heroine and so on.

In the modern world there's constant discussion about access to porn sites, and 50 Shades of Grey was quite a phenomenon.

Do you think people are still interested in romance novels?

I think they are. Mills & Boon are the only publishers where all the readers are asking them for more books and sometimes take out a subscription.

They don't just do the bodice ripper traditional fiction but all sorts of different romantic novels.

Interestingly, I think lots of women saw 50 Shades as a love story rather than a sexy read.

So what do we mean by 'romance'?

One of the reasons why I wanted to be a judge is because I think we need to redefine what we mean by romance.

I think that a lot of couples have trouble because women tend to think in a very narrow sense that romance means chocolate and flowers, and men often see romance differently.

There was a brilliant experiment recently where they asked married men to do something romantic for their wives and I think something like 80% of the men went home and washed her car as that was their idea of romance - to do something for their wife that was useful.

So we need to re-think what's romantic and if you think your partner's not romantic enough you want to think - this is my idea of romance but what's his or her idea of romance.

Perhaps they are being romantic but just expressing it in a different way.

On a personal level what do you find romantic? Would you like to have your car washed?

I don't have a car anymore but if I did I probably would.

I've had the most romantic traditional gestures, including champagne delivered across the room and been whisked on an expensive holiday to Bali.

But in fact the times when I've ever felt the most romantic and particularly now when I feel the most overwhelmed by love and think about how happy I am, is picturing ordinary times.

My partner and my little stepdaughter and I all get on so well and it's sort of more just having a laugh when you're doing the shopping, I tend to find that sort of thing far more real - to me that's more representative of real love and so in that sense is more romantic.

Do couples communicate enough about sex? Or perhaps too much?

Definitely not too much, though I think we're getting better. I remember when I first started talking about sex 10 years ago and people were like, 'I can't tell my partner what he's doing wrong or right.'

I think it's sunk in now, and looking at the younger generation you can see they are aware that their partners aren't mind readers and they might have to say 'look, you need to do it like this.'

So we're better at instructing our partners but I don't think we're very good at confessing our deepest

darkest of what we'd really like to do in bed.

People are a bit nervous about being judged and that's the next step for us, to be able to confess things and not worry our partner might think, 'oh, nice girls don't think like that.'

Well, they do think things like that.

Tracey Cox is one of the judges for Mills & Boon's new awards 'The Romantics', taking place on April 29 www.mills&boon.co.uk