Penguin Random House launches Dusk for romance and fantasy
Penguin Random House has launched Dusk, a new adult imprint for romance, fantasy and crossover fiction.
The launch was reported on 14 September 2026. Its first titles are due in fall 2026, according to Publishers Marketplace. That timetable puts books on shelves during the current autumn season.
An imprint, meaning a separately named publishing line with its own editorial character inside a larger house, builds its own list title by title. Dusk will work in that way inside Penguin Random House. Its brief is adult fiction, meaning books commissioned, edited and sold for adult readers rather than for children or teenagers.
Two people will lead it. Carmen McCullough takes the role of Publisher, meaning responsibility for the editorial direction and commercial shape of the list. Amina Parchment-Youssef serves as editorial director, meaning day-to-day leadership of finding manuscripts and guiding authors through editing and production. Both appointments were confirmed in the same trade report.
The imprint is aimed at readers in the United Kingdom and Europe, according to Parade. That description sets its core market, meaning where its sales, marketing and distribution will initially concentrate. It does not by itself settle where individual rights may later be sold, since rights, meaning permission to publish a book in a particular language or territory, are often negotiated book by book.
Romance here covers fiction centred on a romantic relationship. Fantasy covers fiction set in imagined worlds with magic or mythic systems. Crossover fiction, in publishing use, generally describes books that travel from one readership to another, whether across genres or from younger to adult readers.
New lines are normally built slowly. Editors agree acquisitions, meaning contracts to publish particular manuscripts, then organise editing, cover design, printing and selling into bookshops. A fall debut shortens the public wait. Readers meet the list only when finished books arrive, while much of that work happens earlier.
Large houses often run many imprints side by side. Each keeps its own taste and author relationships. Bookshops then decide how much shelf space each list receives, with chains, independents and online retailers each working in different ways.
For fans, this means a new name to watch. Dusk has a genre brief, a leadership team and a season. Its books will soon show how that combination lands with readers who already move freely between love stories and other worlds.
