Ciara Finan is a Curtis Brown Group agent with a voracious appetite for fantasy (especially romantasy), psychologically charged thrillers, and lush historical fiction, with a strong commitment to amplifying writers from underrepresented backgrounds.
In brief
Ciara joined Curtis Brown in early 2018 and has built a broad, commercially minded list spanning fantasy, thriller, romance, historical fiction, and non-fiction — her wishlist is genuinely wide rather than narrowly specialised.
Her stated priority for voices from underrepresented and BIPOC communities is a consistent thread: writers from those backgrounds should treat this as a meaningful signal, not boilerplate.
Her thriller taste is highly specific: she wants psychologically destabilising, twist-heavy, 'unhinged women' narratives in the vein of Gone Girl — quiet domestic suspense without that electric reveal is unlikely to excite her.
She is open to querying authors who have prior self-publishing history within fantasy and romance, which is an unusual and explicit welcome not many agents extend.
Her non-fiction appetite is surprisingly varied — history, feminism, nature, wellness, astrology/occult, and even economics — but the throughline is accessibility: she wants ideas-driven books written for a broad audience, not academic texts.
Lately
Ciara updated her submission profile to make explicit that she welcomes queries from fantasy and romance authors who have a self-publishing background — an unusual and generous opening that signals she evaluates commercial potential and voice over traditional publishing credentials alone.
What Ciara is looking for
This is Ciara's most emphatic priority. She wants to be fully immersed — world, plot, and characters all pulling equal weight. She is drawn to romantasy, cozy fantasy, dark and light academia aesthetics, gothic fantasy, and stories with political intrigue woven through them. The touchstone authors she cites — Leigh Bardugo, Tamsyn Muir, R.F. Kuang, Scarlett St. Clair, Chloe Gong, Stephanie Garber, Ava Reid, Sabaa Tahir, S.A. Chakraborty, and Sarah J. Maas — collectively signal a taste for lush prose, morally complex characters, and worlds with serious stakes. Notably, she will consider authors who have previously self-published within these genres, which is an explicit and welcome door.
Ciara is chasing a very specific high: the gut-punch of an expertly engineered reveal. She wants dark, psychologically driven plots, morally unruly female protagonists, and a narrative voice that unsettles. The reference points she names — Gone Girl's structural shock, the menace of The Push, the cold voice of Verity, the dark wit of A Certain Hunger, and the dread of Girl A — make clear she is not looking for procedural crime or cosy mystery. Twists matter, but voice and psychological texture matter equally.
Ciara seeks romance and book-club-friendly fiction that takes relationships seriously — complicated, layered, emotionally honest depictions of love rather than straightforward meet-cutes. She is open to rom-coms and general romance but is most drawn to stories where the emotional stakes feel real and the writing has literary heft. Her named touchstones span literary romance, music-world drama, and quiet character studies, suggesting she values atmosphere and interiority alongside the romantic plot.
She loves rich, transporting historical novels — immersive rather than dry, character-led rather than purely event-driven. Her taste stretches from literary historical (Hamnet, Fingersmith) to gripping popular historical (The Nightingale) to the kind of revisionist or alternative-history energy found in recent prestige TV (The Buccaneers 2023, The Serpent Queen 2022). She is also interested in fiction that blends historical setting with speculative or mythological elements — retellings of classical myth in the tradition of Madeline Miller and Pat Barker are explicitly welcomed.
Ciara is open to accessible, idea-driven non-fiction across a notably wide range: history, feminism, nature, health and wellness, astrology and the occult, and even economics and politics. The governing criterion is clarity and broad appeal — she wants writers who can make complex or specialist subjects genuinely readable for a mainstream audience. This is not a space for dense academic or niche specialist work.
Not the right fit
Taste fingerprint
How to query Ciara
Send to her agency email address with the word 'Query' in the subject line — she specifies this explicitly, so omitting it likely affects triage.
Include a cover letter, a synopsis, and the first 50 pages of your manuscript or a full book proposal — no more, no less than she asks for.
If your work fits more than one of her categories (e.g. historical fiction with speculative elements, or a romance with book-club crossover potential), name both in your cover letter; her wishlist shows she actively welcomes genre-blending.
She notes she cannot respond to every submission — but she does ask to be kept informed if you receive a full manuscript request or an offer of representation from another agent, so follow up in those cases.
Self-published fantasy and romance authors should flag their publishing history positively rather than omitting it — she has specifically said she is open to working with authors who have self-published in these genres.
Writers from underrepresented backgrounds should know this is a stated editorial priority, not afterthought language — it is worth acknowledging authentically in a cover letter if it applies to your work.
Lead your cover letter with the sharpest version of your concept, your genre, and your word count — her list is wide, so help her instantly place where your book fits.
For thrillers, articulate what makes your twist or reveal surprising — she is specifically chasing that structural high, and telling her so directly shows you understand her taste.