Euan Thorneycroft

I am looking for a book that I'll be thinking about long after I finish the last page. This could be a twisty suspense with an exciting and original hook (I love a high concept hook!) or an epic or intimate love story with protagonists I root for, but can't help feeling are making the wrong decisions. I love thrillers, from the literary to the commercial, and would like to find a book that portrays real psychological insight and moral complexity in its characters, perhaps in the vein of Andrea Mara, or a story that hinges on a clever speculative twist, like Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister. I’d love to read something fresh and surprising, something which blends genres, such as Colin Walsh’s Kala. 

I enjoy sharp, contemporary narratives, and voices with bite and edge - bonus points if a book makes me laugh. I've recently loved Nussaibah Younis' Fundamentally and Oisin McKenna's Evenings and Weekends. I'd love to find a novel with the emotional precision of Lily King's Heart the Lover. I'm also on the hunt for an audacious and inventive historical voice, much like Jo Harkin's The Pretender, which feels like a real reinvention of the genre, or a story set in a world entirely divorced from our own, but with characters that still feel modern and human, much like Caro Claire Burke's Yesteryear, or with the surprising tenderness of Susanna Clarke's Piranesi.

In nonfiction, I am largely looking for experts who can translate their expertise into an engaging and page-turning narrative. I love books that change my mind about a preconceived opinion, and would always love to hear from a writer with a compelling proposal for a story that feels international and wide-reaching, but hasn't yet been told. I also represent memoir – but I’m looking for memoir that reaches outside of its immediate story to resonate widely, such as H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald or Free by Lea Ypi.  

The authors I represent and champion reflect the breadth and depth of my reading taste - from crime and thriller writers such as the prizewinning Vaseem Khan and Frances Crawford, to writers of wicked female revenge thrillers like Katy Brent, and authors whose prose constantly awes me with its sparsity and precision, such as Cynan Jones, Noel O’Regan, or Karen Powell. In nonfiction, I represent journalists and experts on geopolitics and history, such as Glen Ireland, Sean O'Neill, and Alwyn Turner, but also international peace-building professionals, such as Yeshim Harris, and psychotherapists, like Emma Reed Turrell. I also represent the Estate of Flann O'Brien who, along with Joyce and Beckett, makes up the holy trinity of modern Irish literature. 

Genres I'm looking for include, in fiction, crime; psychological thriller; upmarket book club novels, speculative literary/literary horror; high concept fiction; historical and contemporary literary. In nonfiction, I'm looking for narrative nonfiction in the areas of history; geopolitics; politics; geography; science (including health, social sciences, and smart thinking), and - on occasion - memoir. I'm afraid I'm not the right person for children's, young adult, or SFF, so please do redirect your submission to one of my colleagues. 

I judge the Bridport Memoir and Novel-writing Prizes. Do send me over your work, as I'd love to read it.