Mills & Boon is claiming to be turning "traditional storytelling ... on its head" with the launch of an online story world which stitches together more than 800 pieces of digital content in multiple formats in what it says is a global first.
The romance publisher - whose parent Harlequin has just been acquired by News Corp - has created a fictional online hotel, The Chatsfield, as the jumping off point for a host of different storylines. There's Jessie, the executive assistant who has bet her best friend that she won't date anyone for three months, who stumbles across a mysterious bar manager with a secret to hide. There's a chambermaid with a sideline as an escort, and, in true Mills & Boon style, a playboy media mogul. The stories will be played out through Facebook, YouTube, blogs, short stories and Twitter, with characters reacting to readers' interactions, and the publisher planning to develop the characters that users interact with most.
Mills & Boon hopes the project will be a new evolution for the series romance novels for which it is best known. "Welcome to a world of style, spectacle and scandal," says the Chatsfield website, which went live this week. "The Chatsfield has welcomed, captivated and entertained the fabulously rich and famous for almost a century." Readers can follow the characters' real-time Twitter and Facebook account, watch their video blogs, and even check characters' emails.
