There are all kinds of things musicians say you can’t do with love — not buy it, hurry it nor stop from fallin’ in it. But you can apparently turn it into a viable export commodity.

And that’s what Harlequin Enterprises Ltd. is doing. The global leader in romance literature for women is continuing with its lofty international expansion plans and will soon offer titles in Russia.

The Torstar Corp. unit has signed a licensing deal with a Russian publishing house to begin printing books in the Russian language.

The deal will include the publisher’s racier romance titles and their steamy plots and chiselled bookcover models — certain to make Mother Russia blush.

And there is no reason to believe that the romance genre won’t succeed in a country that is increasingly embracing the lowbrow, much to the dismay of Russian intellectual elite, said Aurel Brown, a professor of international relations and political science at the University of Toronto’s Trinity College.

“Sometimes the intelligentsia in Russia is shocked by this because they take an exalted view. Romance is Tolstoy’s War and Peace,” Mr. Braun said, noting the possibility of a government opposing the introduction of Harlequin.

“What has been happening is that Russia has been taking an increasing detour away from democracy. So will there be an official reaction that they will claim this is somehow going to pollute Russian culture?” he said. “Will the government in Russia allow the people to freely make bad literary judgments?”

Harlequin is counting on it.

Publisher Izdatelstvo Centrepolygraph (ZAO) plans to release in Russia more than 170 titles in the first year in hardcover, paperback and mass-market paperback formats.

While the deal makes ZAO Harlequin’s largest licensee in both number of titles and income, it will represent a small market for the publisher, at least initially.

“Russia is a difficult market for publishers,” said Stephen Miles, Harlequin’s executive vice-president of overseas operations. “Everyone has sort of got a toe in the water there, but no one’s got a good foothold. This gets our toe in the water.”

Keeping an eye on emerging markets is a key component to the company’s international plans, Mr. Miles said.

Harlequin now has offices in 19 countries and publishes romance titles in 32 languages.

Since 2008, the publisher has expanded to India, signed licensing deals in Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand, and acquired full ownership of its German operation.

Last spring Harlequin launched a business in Turkey, a market that underlines the need for cultural and religious sensitivity, Mr. Miles said, noting that the Muslim country is definitely not the right market for lustier books like Naughty Bits.

“We have a sort of a wholesome line. It doesn’t have any premarital sex, it doesn’t have any swearing. It’s very pure, no kissing even,” he said.

And some of those underdeveloped book markets can present some significant logistical difficulties, he said. Booksellers in Russia and India may occasionally refuse shipments and transportation and payment snags are not uncommon.

And books in those markets also sell for only about one-quarter of North American price points, Mr. Miles said.

Those drawbacks have so far kept Harlequin out of China entirely, he said. “We don’t feel that any publisher can create a business there,” he said, noting that Chinese readers generally prefer nonfiction.

But in Russia, ZAO knows the market well and will choose the Harlequin titles best suited to the Russian market, he said.

“Some of the really American-type romance books we publish in North America — cowboys riding on the plains in Montana — don’t travel as well around the world. But the traditional romance stuff? Every woman in the world wants to meet a Greek billionaire.”

tshufelt@nationalpost.com