Kristina Pérez

Commercial & Book Club Fiction – I’d love to see a manuscript that plays with form and narrative structure like Daisy Jones & the Six or The Paper Palace. Sweeping multigenerational dramas in the vein of Pachinko or books that take on timely issues such as Emily Edwards’ The Herd will catch my eye. Keenly researched historical fiction like Lynne Kutsukake’s The Translation of Love or anything by Yangsze Choo will hit the mark.

Upmarket Fiction – Give me The White Lotus but make it a book. Even something quirky like Avenue 5. Any kind of razor-sharp and laugh-out-loud social satire is my cup of tea. The characters don’t have to be likeable so long as they’re compelling. Books with the lyrical prose of Jane Healey’s The Ophelia Girls won’t go amiss. I also love a high concept twist like The Other Black Girl and books set in non-Western locations like Crazy Rich Asians or My Sister the Serial Killer. I’d also flip for a retelling with the incisive perspective of Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls.

Crime and Thriller – Sunday nights at my house as a kid were all about Murder, She Wrote, so if you have a clever murder mystery, cozy or darker, on your hard drive, then send it my way. I would also love to see Knives Out with a little romance thrown in. On the more psychological thriller side of things, lately I’ve been inhaling Shari LePena, Gillian McAllister, Louise Candlish and Catherine Steadman. And if you have the taut characterisation of Patricia Highsmith, then please knock on my door (but not literally!).

Crossover YA Romance and Fantasy – Dark or light academia, I don’t mind, just give me some Bridgerton with magic. I love brooding (but not obnoxious) heroes and heroines. I would love to find a queer romance set in an alternate timeline or a well-considered secondary world. I want to escape into an epic romance, especially enemies to lovers, where the protagonists learn and grow through their relationship (even if they’re fighting like cats and dogs!). Show me interdependence, not codependence, and maybe throw in some corsets.

I am primarily looking for current affairs, cultural history, and popular science. If you’re an academic who can write like a journalist, I want to hear from you. Think Latinx by Ed Morales. Or this decade’s version of China Pop by Jianying Zha. I love non-fiction that tells stories and cover big topics in unusual ways such as Lara Maiklem’s Mudlarking or Deirdre Mask’s The Address Book. Oral histories like Live from New York by James Andrew Miller are high on my wish list.

I am also always looking for feminist criticism like Susan J. Douglas’s Where the Girls Are. A biography on a lesser known female historical figure such as Widow Clicquot by Tilar J. Mazzeo will pop my cork! Recent popular science I’ve enjoyed include: Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez, Inferior by Angela Saini, and Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker.