ONE SPACE LEFT! 13 August Daisy Chandley #Agent121. Looking for: ADULT FICTION, YA ROMANTASY

Description

LOOKING FOR: ADULT FICTION and YA ROMANTASY

Daisy Chandley is an Agent in the Books Department, and also works with Tim Bates as the UK sub-agent for New Directions Publishing in the US. She joined Peters, Fraser & Dunlop in 2019 after graduating from the University of Oxford with a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics.

Daisy represents a wide range of authors, including prize-winners and Sunday Times and USA Today bestsellers, and is actively building a list of both fiction and non-fiction across a variety of genres.

With fiction, her wishlist roughly falls into three categories, though she absolutely welcomes things that overlap between them:

1) Sharp, original novels on the literary to upmarket spectrum, all the way from dark and boundary-pushing books like Hurricane Season, Under The Skin or In The Cut to those balancing edge, heart and humour, like Detransition, Baby, The Idiot, or Greta and Valdin. She loves irreverent wit, incisive observation, boldness in story or form, and unsettling undertones (or overtones) in equal measure, and would love to find books that – in the tradition of authors like Toni Morrison and Lorrie Moore – draw characters and depict life in a way that is deeply and sincerely emotional without losing that touch of humour and brutality that keep it from sentimentality. Some recent (to her) favourites have been Sheila Heti’s Motherhood, Solvej Balle’s On The Calculation of Volume, and Laurie Colwin’s Another Marvelous Thing.

2) Romance, particularly romance with humour to it! This, of course, includes romcoms (whether a fresh take on a tropey contemporary romcom or the more unusual, genre-bending style of something like Palm Springs), but a straightforward contemporary romance, paranormal romance, horrrormance or grounded romantasy that features plenty of snarky bickering or flirting-via-bullying absolutely fits the bill too. At the moment she’d love to find dark academia, enemies to lovers where they’re actually enemies, anything that has the energy of the golden age of the CW (i.e has a The Vampire Diaries, Pretty Little Liars or Gossip Girl edge), and/or anything that feels really decadent and sexy without being too heavy on the fantasy worldbuilding.

3) Mysteries – Daisy is not the right person for police procedurals or commercial thrillers, but is always keen to see a well crafted mystery. Whether it’s a smart and tightly crafted detective story like Knives Out or The Devotion of Suspect X, or a dark and page-turning literary mystery like Kala or The God of the Woods, she loves anything that plays with our assumptions, especially if it uses some clever tricks with perspective or form to do so.

4) Daisy is definitely interested in literary speculative fiction, though is not generally looking for hard SFF, and doesn’t represent children’s authors. However, she is happy to look at romantasy that the author considers to be YA, as long as the protagonists are over 18.

Daisy is not the right fit for Children’s authors (except YA Romantasy). 

Daisy would like you to submit a covering letter, 1 page synopsis and the first 2,500 words of your manuscript in a single word document.

(In addition to the paid sessions, Daisy is kindly offering one free session for low income/under-represented writers. Please email agent121@iaminprint.co.uk to apply, outlining your case for this option which is offered at the discretion of I Am In Print). 

By booking you understand you need to conduct an internet connection test with I Am In Print prior to the event. You also agree to email your material in one document to reach I Am In Print by the stated submission deadline and note that I Am In Print take no responsibility for the advice received during your agent meeting.

The submission deadline is: Friday 31 July 2026 by 10:00am UK BST
* Please note the deadline is earlier than normal due to the summer holidays *