Alessandra Roche
Avon/William Morrow
My Manuscript Wish List®
Alessandra Roche joined the Avon/William Morrow team in 2022. She focuses on voice driven commercial fiction and is interested in acquiring pacey romances featuring high concept, cross genre hooks a la The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year and sexy, atmospheric dark romance with high stakes. She loves dark academia and stories that take place in unique or glamorous settings. She is especially interested in genre mashups like Thrilleromance and Horroromance.
She is also drawn to stories with dark themes including horror and psychological thrillers. She has a soft spot for Gothic elements, coming of age stories, campus novels, and the cursed Hollywood trope—so yes, she loved Plain Bad Heroines.
One of her favorite movies is Almost Famous, so she loves a rock ‘n’ roll premise, both in fiction like Daisy Jones and the Six or High Fidelity, or non-fiction like Meet Me in the Bathroom. In the non-fiction space, she is also drawn to unforgettable women’s voices in the vein of Jia Tolentino and Eve Babitz. She is addicted to pop culture.
Some of her favorite writers include Emma Cline, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Mona Awad, Bret Easton Ellis, Stephanie Danler, Karen M. McManus, Nikki St. Crowe, Grady Hendrix, Jen Beagin, and Patricia Highsmith.
Submissions should be emailed to alessandra.roche@harpercollins.com
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Vital Info
Favorite sub-genres:
Adult Horror, Adult Rom Com, Book Club, Books about books, Commercial adult fiction, Complicated Relationships, Crime & Thriller, Cross-genre, Cultural Criticism, Dark Female Friendships, Dark topics with a light touch, Essay collections, Fairytale Retellings, Female Friendships, Feminist Horror, Gothic Horror, Hauntings, LGBTQ+ rom coms, Latinx stories, Layered Rom-Coms and Comedy of Manners with a cultural component, Magical Realism, Modern Retellings of Fairy Tales, Modernized Mythologies, Mysteries, New Adult, Noir, Occult Horror, Paranormal Horror, Paranormal Romance, Paranormal Thriller, Pop Culture, Psychological Horror, Psychological Thrillers, Retellings, Romantic Suspense, Romantic Thriller, Smart Beach Reads, Speculative Fiction, Thriller, Whodunit, beach reads, campus novel, coming of age, crossover appeal, dark academia, diverse heroines, enemies to lovers, erotic romance, gothic romance, high concept fiction, rivals to lovers, romantic New Adult, romantic suspense/mystery
I’d like the next…
Pacey romance with a cross genre hook
- I loved The Gorge movie with Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller, it was such a fresh take on the action-romance genre and I would love a book in this vein.
- I absolutely love a whodunnit, and if there’s a swoony romance, too, like in The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year– even better.
Extra-spicy dark romance with high stakes
- I’m a huge fan of Sierra Simone and Ana Huang, bring on the spice!
- I love a why choose romance whether it’s in a glamorous contemporary billionaire setting like Sadie Kincaid’s The Perfect Fit or a super creative, well contructed world like Nikki St Crowe’s Vicious Lost Boys series.
- Vampires are always hot in my world – especially in an extra dark and sexy romance!
Erotic thrillers
- I love and miss 90s erotic thrillers- Basic Instinct, Sliver, and even 2004’s Closer! I would love a book that encapsulates those steamy, suspenseful vibes.
- Babygirl was a ton of fun and a more recent take on the genre, I loved the age gap romance.
Murder but make it fun!
- I love tongue-in-cheek YA books like One of Us is Lying and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, and would love to see more books like this in the adult/new adult space!
- I love movies like Heathers, Jawbreaker, Sorority Row, and Cherry Falls, and TV shows like Scream Queens, You, and Pretty Little Liars – these capture the fun, winking at the audience, slightly sexy, but super high stakes stories that completely suck me in! A central romance is always a bonus for me, but not necessary in this case! I’m looking for super addicting stories in this direction.
Horror
- I love Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay, especially the meta aspect of creating a horror film and the way the lines blend between reality and fiction.
- Religious horror! I would love a compulsively readable horror novel centering around religious themes – nuns, a monastery, a tempted priest, etc. The First Omen movie did a good job with this!
- I have a sweet spot for Gothic horror, especially with a psychological bent! I loved Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix and Mona Awad’s Rouge.
Campus Novels
- I love dark academia! The Secret History, If We Were Villains, & Plain Bad Heroines are all fantastic examples!
- Brideshead Revisited is one of my favorite books of all time and Dead Poets Society is, of course, a classic – complicated friendships are the best in a coming of age context!
- For me, most stories are more fun on a campus- this is genre inclusive! Some examples include The IT Girl series, Vampire Academy, YOU season 4, and Scream 2!
My favorites include…
Movies: Cruel Intentions, Scream, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Almost Famous, Metropolitan (and all the Whit Stillman movies), Friday the 13th (the original), Black Swan, Adventureland, Corpse Bride, 13 Going on 30, The Girl Next Door, Uptown Girls, Everybody Wants Some, Y Tu Mamá También, American Psycho, Cherry Falls, Eyes Wide Shut, Notting Hill, The Bling Ring, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Interview With a Vampire, The Lost Boys, Scent of a Woman, Basic Instinct, Heathers, Dirty Dancing, Stand By Me, Labyrinth, The Shining, Carrie, Jaws, Psycho, When Harry Met Sally, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, The Silence of the Lambs, Stepford Wives
Books: The Girls and The Guest by Emma Cline, Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Bunny by Mona Awad, Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler, The Never King by Nikki St Crowe, Priest by Sierra Simone, The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis, all of The Ripley novels by Patricia Highsmith, Book Lovers by Emily Henry, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix, Big Swiss by Jen Beagin, The Blonde Identity by Ally Carter, Slow Days, Fast Company by Eve Babitz, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik, Unfurl by Elodie Hart, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson, Perfume and Pain by Anna Dorn, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney, Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
TV: Yellowjackets, Pretty Little Liars, Vampire Diaries, The White Lotus, Desprate Housewives, Big Little Lies, Riverdale, Twin Peaks, The Americans, You, Fleabag, The Haunting of Hill House, The Society, Sex Education, Scandal, How to Get Away With Murder, Scream Queens, American Horror Story Season 1, Gossip Girl, Scenes From a Marriage, Killing Eve, Crashing, Buffy, Paradise, West Wing, Poker Face, The Flight Attendant, Dead to Me
