Harlequin

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Harlequin Enterprises Limited is a Toronto, Ontario-based company that is the world's leading publisher of romance and women's fiction. Owned by the Torstar Corporation, the largest newspaper publisher in Canada, the company publishes nearly 110 new titles each month in 27 different languages.

Harlequin was founded in 1949 and started out publishing a wide range of books from Westerns to Romances to cookbooks. In 1957 Harlequin began acquiring the rights to, and publishing, novels from Mills & Boon. Due to the huge popularity of this genre, by 1964 the company was exclusively publishing romance fiction and in 1971 it purchased Mills & Boon, forming Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited in the UK.

The publisher has gone through many changes as the market grows, expanding with offices in New York, London, Tokyo, Milan, Sydney, Paris, Madrid, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Athens, Budapest, Granges-Pacot and Warsaw, as well as licensing agreements in nine other countries. It has also expanded its range of books, offering everything from thrillers and commercial literary fiction under the Mira imprint; Bridget Jones-style 'Chick lit' under its Red Dress Ink imprint; fantasy books under the LUNA imprint; and inspirational fiction published under the name Steeple Hill and Steeple Hill Café; male action adventure books under Gold Eagle imprint.

See Also

Current Harlequin Imprints

  • American
  • Blaze
  • Everlasting Love
  • Historical
  • HQN - Harlequin enters the single-title market.
  • Intrigue - Harlequin's romantic suspense line.
  • Love Inspired - This imprint is devoted to inspirational (mainly Christian) romances.
  • Mira - Mira is Harlequin's high-end single title imprint.
  • Next - Women's fiction
  • Presents - This imprint is devoted to glamore and passion, often with International settings
  • Red Dress - this imprint publishes primarily "chick-lit"
  • Steeple Hill Books - Steeple Hill is devoted to publishing Inspirational romance.
  • Superromance - Longer titles focusing on family issues.
  • Violet - Violet is Harlequin's manga line. Currently, only existing titles are being reprinted.

Current Mills & Boon Imprints

Current Silhouette Imprints

Defunct Imprints

Harlequin

  • Duets - A humor line featuring two books in one.
  • Flipside
  • Love and Laughter - The Love and Laughter line featured short, humorous stories. The line later became Flipside. While humor remains a popular topic, dedicated Harlequin lines never seem to catch on with readers.
  • Romance
  • Temptation - Temptation was Harlequin's long-running sensual line. As the hotter Blaze line drew off readers, Temptation finally ceased publication in 2005.
    • Heat - Blaze was the original "flash" on the cover of Temptation books drawing readers looking for hotter, sexier reads. After Blaze became its own line, the Heat "flash" debuted.

Silhouette

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