Avon Launches Already Booked, a New Imprint Built Around Romance and Genre Fiction

Avon has launched a new imprint called Already Booked. Its stated aim is to publish books readers cannot put down and cannot stop recommending.

Avon announced the launch in a social media post, and Publishers Marketplace, a trade news service that tracks book deals, reported it on 27 October 2026. An imprint is a label inside a publishing company, with its own identity and its own list of books. Avon Books is itself an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, and it has been publishing romance since 1941.

Already Booked will cover five genres: romance, romantasy (romance blended with fantasy), new adult (fiction about characters in their late teens and twenties), thriller and horror. Avon's website describes the imprint as a home for "stories you cancel plans for," and says it will publish both established authors and books it expects readers to talk about next.

The imprint is led by Christa Désir, Avon's VP and Editorial Director. HarperCollins announced her appointment to the Avon Group on 9 June 2026, and the role took effect on 15 June. An editorial director oversees which books a publisher acquires and how those books are edited, so the new label is her first project of that kind at Avon in this role.

Publishers Marketplace reports that Already Booked has so far reported seven deals. A deal in this sense is a contract under which a publisher agrees to bring out a book. Seven is the number reported so far.

Laine Carter also joined the Avon and Already Booked team in 2026.

For readers, the practical change is a new name to look for on the spine and in the catalogue. For Avon, it is a separate home for genres that sell strongly in romance-led fiction, with the editorial and marketing focus that a dedicated label allows. Whether the imprint's books find their readers is a question for the months ahead.