Men have been named as winners of the Romantic Novel Awards for the first time, ending more than half a century in which female writers held a monopoly on affairs of the heart.

Kerry Wilkinson and Marius Gabriel are the first men to be honoured at the ceremony since the awards were founded in 1960.

Wilkinson, an author best known for his million-selling Jessica Daniel detective series, won the young adult category with Ten Birthdays, the story of a teenage girl dealing with bereavement.

The award for best historical novel went to Marius Gabriel for The Designer, a novel set in 1940s Paris. Gabriel began his career in the 1980s writing Mills and Boon novels under a female pseudonym, but now uses his own name.

Nicola Cornick, chair of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, said female readers have accepted that men can write about love.

“Women wanted to feel that they were reading stories by women for women, but these days that is an old-fashioned attitude. They are increasingly comfortable reading stories by men, and over the last few years there has been an increase in publishers submitting books by men,” Ms Cornick said.

“Writing under a female pseudonym is what used to happen in the 1970s and 1980s. I can think of a number of people who were members but always wrote under a female name.”