MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
August 15-31, 2005 Edition
Harlequins Australian
Arm Turns to Real Life
Plots and Heroines
AUSTRALIA/8/8/05Real life has finally caught up with publisher Mills & Boon, Australian division of Harlequin, according to an article by John Elliott in the Australian News. Some heroines stay single–or even get divorced.
FOR 70 years, Mills & Boon has produced novels promoting escapist romantic passion in which the hero and heroine live happily ever after. Now the publisher has accepted that life is not always quite like that, according to the article in the Australian News.
In a shift to grittier themes, Mills & Boon is to produce a new range of books telling the stories of women whose marriages have collapsed, who are bringing up difficult children alone or who are dealing with illnesses such as breast cancer.
Entitled Next, the series is aimed at readers over 30 and will reflect the career and social changes of women since the publisher first established its romantic formula in the 1930s. . .
Harlequin Mills & Boon has no intention of dropping its romantic line. The Next range — which is being promoted with the tag line “because every life has one more chapter” — will run alongside more titles such as At the French Baron’s Bidding, The Sheikh’s Mistress, Breathless for a Bachelor and Lessons from a Latin Lover, according to Elliotts article, the article says.
As the company is keen to point out, it has built its reputation on romance. In the past 40 years, the publisher’s website boasts that its heroes and heroines “have kissed each other over 20,000 times, shared about 30,000 hugs and headed for the altar at least 7000 times”. Read the full article at The Australian News.
