Seeks voice-driven or character-driven literary fiction with a genuine social critique embedded in the narrative. She is drawn to work that interrogates power, institutions, and systemic legacies—especially those tied to empire and colonialism—and to stories that unflinchingly examine the hidden fault lines within families and how those fractures echo across generations. Think along the lines of Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn or Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. Structurally innovative manuscripts—non-linear, nested, or formally experimental—are a particular favorite.

This is where her enthusiasm is loudest. She wants wildly imaginative fiction that refuses easy genre classification—surreal, dark, strange, magical, and unsettling work that pushes against convention. She points to the tonal and structural territory mapped by writers like Sequoia Nagamatsu, Kate Folk, and Bora Chung as ideal north stars. Gothic literary fiction for adults is also very much in scope, provided the atmosphere is matched by real plot propulsion and ideally a thriller or mystery undercurrent—haunting AND twisty.

YA is a core pillar of her list. Her ideal YA project weaves speculative or fantastical elements together with social commentary, a plot-driven adventure or mystery structure, and a cast readers will genuinely root for. She is particularly enthusiastic about dark speculative YA that still carries levity, portal fantasies, and magical girl stories in the tradition of Winx Club (not the Netflix reboot). For contemporary YA, she welcomes the full tonal spectrum—from warmly romantic (Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter, Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Solomon) to emotionally heavy meditations on grief, family, and friendship (Picture Us in the Light by Kelly Loy Gilbert, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz, All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir). A touch of spice is acceptable in YA romance, provided it remains age-appropriate. YA Gothic with thriller/mystery bones is also expressly wanted.

She has an unambiguous love for smart, voicey, funny romance and romantic comedies that deliver banter, slow-burn tension, and genuine swoon. She references The Flatshare, The Hating Game, Anna and the French Kiss, Well Met, Love & Gelato, and How to End a Love Story as books she has loved, alongside Kyra Parsi's Billionaire Boss series. She is also drawn to fresh, stylish horror romance in the vein of How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates. On the more literary end, she is actively searching for romantic fiction with the emotional and visual register of the film Past Lives and the series First Love: Hatsukoi.

For nonfiction, she gravitates toward memoirs that weave personal story together with substantial research and cultural analysis—not just confession, but excavation. In narrative nonfiction more broadly, she wants work that is resistant and radical in spirit: projects that interrogate the origins and ongoing consequences of institutions, ideologies, and systems, particularly those shaped by empire, colonialism, and sovereignty. She is looking for nonfiction that doesn't merely describe the world but argues about it.

A specific and personal interest: sports-centered novels where the sport itself is the actual engine of the story, not merely a backdrop. She references anime touchstones like Haikyuu, Run with the Wind, and Aoashi as models for sports fiction done right, and Yuri on Ice as the ideal balance of sports and romance. Both adult and YA are presumably in scope.