She wants closed-circle tension: tight friend groups where the cracks are spreading, communities or families that go into lockdown when a secret surfaces, and that slow-dawning horror of realizing every person in the room is hiding something. Glossy, aspirational settings with a dark undertow appeal to her. Bonus if a thread of romance is present to raise the personal stakes.

Immersive, pulse-pounding world-building is the price of entry. She responds to hunter-and-hunted dynamics, dangerous game structures, earned rebellions, and — notably — settings that feel sentient or alive in some way, as if the world itself is a character. Morally complex choices, slow-burn romantic tension, and the idea that survival always exacts a price are recurring themes she names.

Diversity is a core requirement here, not a nice-to-have. She's actively seeking queer love stories, romances rooted in non-Christian religious contexts, and stories set outside the United States that feel genuinely specific to their place. Straight, white American protagonists are not off the table, but the manuscript needs to bring something structurally inventive or boldly distinctive to earn her attention. Warmth, humor, and emotional bigness are the tonal targets.

She has a specific, underserved craving here: a ruined world grounded in reality, following people who survived on the ground rather than escaping to space or a magical realm. She explicitly wants this to be post-apocalyptic, not fantasy dystopia — the distinction matters to her. Think societal collapse, survival communities, and the human cost of a climate-wrecked earth.

She wants love stories that feel emotionally desperate — the kind where characters make objectively bad decisions and readers cheer for them anyway. Forced proximity, one-bed scenarios, mistaken or hidden identities are all beloved tropes. She has range here: cozy, Hallmark-warm holiday romances (she's watched virtually every Christmas movie of this type) sit alongside romances with genuine heat and emotional rawness. Fresh, non-generic settings are a draw. She also specifically called out a desire for queer romances with the emotional charge of Heated Rivalry by Elle Kennedy. Identity in her ideal romance is background, not curriculum — characters simply are who they are.

She is open to dark romance but has a firm, non-negotiable boundary: absolutely no non-consensual content. Writers must list content warnings and triggers at the top of the query letter — this is required, not optional.

Her appetite here is for stories centered on women who have been written out of history or who operated in the margins of power — the overlooked, the defiant, the quietly dangerous. She named authors whose work exemplifies this tone as reference points.

She wants psychological thrillers that sustain genuine dread and gothic fiction with a thick, eerie atmosphere. Her recent public note flagging island horror as a current craving suggests she's drawn to isolated, claustrophobic settings where wrongness accumulates slowly.

She specifically calls out stories that center Jewish and/or queer identities — joyful, grounded, identity-driven narratives that are honest rather than didactic. She named Dahlia Adler as a touchstone author for the tone and specificity she's after.

She explicitly says she wants all varieties of rom-com — straight, queer, and silly — and is particularly enthusiastic about fresh, quirky takes. Foot-kicking, giggle-inducing warmth is the stated goal.

She is extremely selective with nonfiction overall, but true crime is the one lane she keeps open — specifically work that handles victims with deep empathy and reads with the propulsion of narrative fiction rather than a dry case summary.