Jennifer March Soloway

No matter the genre or category, Jennifer is most interested in complicated, deeply human characters who make decisions for understandable (often right, but sometimes wrong) reasons. She is drawn to stories that explore the difficulty of getting along with others, whether those relationships be friendship, family, romance, economic partnership, neighbors, community members, or political alliances. A blend of genre and literary would be best of all– and even better if she gets to fall in love (or lust).

Jennifer is actively building her Starling list and seeking the following: 

ADULT
Thriller | Horror | Speculative

• Adult literary psychological thrillers, horror, gothic, and grounded science fiction. (She is a suspense junkie, who loves to be scared). She enjoys dual timeline stories where one’s youth and decisions affect (brighten or haunt) one’s adult life. Throw in dash of (bad) romance, and she’s hooked.
• Stories that blur the lines between the real and the imagined.
• Beautiful writing at the line level that she can’t help but stop to savor the craft. 
• Projects that comp to TV/film horrors: Companion, Barbarian, Watcher, Parasite, Late Night with the Devil, Get Out, Nocturne, It Follows, Santa Sangre, Candy Land (2022), Saint Maud, and more.
• She will read (or watch) any horror with the word “mother” in the title. She is fascinated with the horror of motherhood, the horror of being mothered. (Ex. Leslie J. Anderson’s The Unmothers), and how parents can pass down their own demons to their children. 
• Stories about fraught relationships, both chosen and forced—parent-child, siblings, extended family, in-laws (you don’t just marry the person, you marry their family, too), employee-employer, neighbors, and so on.
• Horroromance. Dating can be a nightmare. Make it terrifying or, better yet, add humor to make it campy and fun.
• While she enjoys a good monster story, she finds that humans are often the scariest monsters of all.
• She is eager to find stories with rural settings: woods, farms, ranches, mountains, lonely highways.
  

YOUNG ADULT
Thriller | Horror | Speculative

• Stories that explore the horror of high school relationships in the vein of TV/film horrors: Yellowjackets, The Perfection, Nocturne, and Heathers.Dark speculative stories that reveal there is magic in our world, if only we knew where to look.
• Psychological thrillers
• Grounded science fiction that explores what might happen, depending on good or bad decisions made now, including alternate histories
• She would love to find a creepy doll story 
• NOTE: Please no YA fantasy at this time; her current list is already full.

Contemporary | Literary | Historical

• Coming-of-age stories about ordinary teens dealing with life, family, relationships, sexuality, and mental health.
• A story that explores recovery from addiction, not the journey to the bottom, but the journey upward, after making a fundamental decision to change one’s life—and how hard it is to get and remain sober.
• She is eager to find a friendship breakup story, where the friends face what feels like an insurmountable challenge—one that will either end in ruin or cement their friendship forever.
• NOTE: Sadly, Jennifer is not the best fit for novels-in-verse, as those forms are not her editorial strength. Please consider one of her wonderful colleagues instead.

MIDDLE GRADE
Mystery | Speculative | Adventure

• Action-packed middle grade stories, full of surprise twists and turns, that keep her at the edge of her seat—and at the same time, tug at her heart with emotionally rich themes of friendship and/or family.

PICTURE BOOK
Humor

• Laugh-out-loud, crowd-pleasing picture books with surprise endings that catch her completely off-guard in the most delightful way.
• Adorable characters that immediately win over the reader with charm and humor
• Vibrant author-illustrator projects with subplots that are art-driven

That’s her wish list, but you might have something she has never considered before, and it might be absolutely perfect for her. Surprise her. She loves to read a good story and hopes to read yours!