A (Not So) Brief Beginner’s Guide to Harlequin Category Lines

We’ve all seen them somewhere: in Barnes & Noble, at the grocery store or CVS, or at least on the internet. Pocket-sized Mass Market (and now Mass Max) paperbacks with varying spine colors and covers that once upon a time kinda looked exactly the same. They are the one thing many people who don’t know much about romance invoke when they think about the genre, and the company behind them has been going on strong for more decades than most of us have been alive. They are Harlequin Category Romances, and they are legion.

Harlequin began as a packaging company in 1949, but really began the romance thing in the late 1950s when they purchased American distribution rights to Mills & Boon, a British company publishing romance and other things. Over the next couple of decades, they started publishing romances of their own. By 1980, their romance lines brought in the majority of their revenue, and well, you’ve seen what they look like now. Of course, they’ve also made some unfortunate decisions over the years; they ended their Kimani line, which was dedicated specifically to Black romance (though they did start filtering their Black authors out to the themed lines). They also closed their longstanding Desire line, feeding most of the writing there into either the Presents line or Afterglow, which isn’t technically a category line. Most recently, they announced that they’re ending their Historicals line, with no indication they intend to continue publishing historical romances within their other lines. 

I guess we’ll keep an eye on how this proceeds. They’re still one of the most popular names in romance, and they have followings that we chronically online folks can’t even imagine, because so many people have been reading them for decades and don’t even bother discussing it. (Did you know bell hooks grew up reading two a day? Maybe she did for the rest of her life, who knows.) Across all categories, Harlequin publishes around 50 books a month, and doesn’t intend to stop anytime soon. 

But this isn’t supposed to be a super long post (I could write a book, my friends), so let’s look at a few of the more popular Harlequin romance category lines!

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Harlequin Presents

Presents is probably one of the more popular lines among both avid readers and lay explorers. Right now, these books have black spines and cover backgrounds, and feature wealthy protagonists and love interests and exotic settings. These are the princes with the secret pregnant brides, the executives snowed in with their forbidden employees, the high-profile movie stars and world-famous athletes who don’t have time for love. Many of these sizzling experiences might also have been in the Desire before a couple of years ago.

We still aren’t seeing much queerness in this category, even compared to the other lines where a queer story might pop up every couple of months, but hopefully progress is being made on that front. Unfortunately, it seems like we’re seeing less racial diversity than we were even last year or the year before, but things can turn around.

Harlequin Romance

If you see Harlequin Romance, you know you’re going to get a more down-to-earth romance experience, but you’re gonna get it somewhere abroad. These are the stories where people need a fake date to a destination wedding, or run into an old love on vacation. At least one of the love interests is probably financially comfortable, but they’re not running in the same circles as our friends in Presents. 

Harlequin Special Edition

Special Edition is basically the same as Romance, but set here in the US. These are the road trip romances, the “starting over in a new town,” or “meeting someone on the job” stories. They’re sensual and sexy but don’t have quite the tier of extensive, explicit sex that Harlequin Dare or Desire might have had in years past. There might be some wealth and some land ownership, but it’s more cowboys and ranchers than palaces and playboys. These romances don’t all take place outdoors, but it feels like it sometimes.

Harlequin Medical Romance

They don’t put as many Medicals out as the other lines every month, but all of these have at least one of the protagonists working in a medical situation, whether it’s a major hospital or a remote clinic. Sometimes the doctor is on vacation, or on the path to having children, planned or unplanned. If you want the classic period of Gray’s but with a promised happy ending every time, these are for you. 

Harlequin Historical

So this one is apparently not that popular, since they’re ending the line, but this is where some of the juiciest new romances have popped up. Authors like Heba Helmy, Lydia San Andres, Parker J. Cole, Emma-Claire Sunday, and Jade Lee have been serving us compelling, trope-heavy, mile-a-minute, swoony romances over the past several years, alongside their Highlander, Viking, and Duke writing sistren. And we can probably make some assumptions just based on that list of authors about why people aren’t picking up as many of them as they might have previously.

There are a good five to ten other lines that I don’t talk about here, and that don’t always make it onto physical shelves. Love Inspired and Love Inspired Romantic Suspense are pretty popular as well, as Harlequin’s faith-based lines. There are also some lines that are series on themes, like the Montana Mavericks and The Fortunes of Texas, which are exactly what they sound like, but are written by several different people. And Harlequin doesn’t only publish the categories: they have other imprints like Afterglow, which are longer and spicier and published in trade paperback; Carina, original publishing home of Heated Rivalry and a lot of other great, digital-first queer and BIPOC romance; and MIRA, which publishes books beyond the parameters of romance. 

I was going to offer up some recommendations, but instead I’ll tell you to explore the lines that most interest you and look for something that draws your eye. Harlequin is actually doing the best work when it comes to photo covers right now, so give them some love and then give them all your money.