Melissa Rechter

Melissa Rechter joined Crooked Lane Books in 2019. She has had the pleasure of working with ITW nominees, New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors, as well as a myriad of talented writers.

For Crooked Lane:

• Cozy mysteries: particularly keen on projects that deal with bookshops, libraries, or have a witchy bent.
• Domestic suspense and psychological thrillers: would love to see complicated family dynamics or twisted female friendships. Anything in the vein of Lucy Foley or Jennifer Hillier.
• Horror: either social or psychological– a la Jordan Peele’s Get Out or Alyssa Cole’s When No One is Watching.
• Historical mysteries: (fond of mid 20th century and Victorian era). Looking for a feminist female protagonist.
• Anything gothic, in the vein of Mexican Gothic or The Death of Jane Lawrence. 
• If a book has cults, folklore, serial killers, poisonous plants, small town secrets, or has a locked room element, it’s right up her alley. 

For Alcove Press:

• Book club fiction: especially if it explores the dark side of suburbia, a la Such a Fun Age or Big Little Lies. 
• Historical fiction: would love to see something centered around prohibition, pirates, or spiritualism with a strong female protagonist. WWII fiction, and anything mid-20th century.
• Romantasy: In the vein of Ninth House or The Serpent and the Wings of Night. Would love to see projects that center around dark academia, dark eldritch creatures in forests, or feminist protagonists subverting gender norms.
• Speculative fiction and magical realism: In the vein of Isabel Allende or Guillermo del Toro. Or anything that deals with time-bending elements like Oona Out of Order.
• Projects that explore found families, grief, and trauma in those fantasy or speculative spaces.
• Anything gothic

Would love to find a novel that explores the toxicity and usage of Scheele’s Green or Paris Green, in either a horror or gothic.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should be emailed to submissions@crookedlanebooks.com or submissions@alcovepress.com

Unagented submissions:

Please send your query letter, along with the first two chapters of your manuscript pasted in the body of your email, to

su*********@al*********.com











or

su*********@cr**************.com











and addressed to Melissa Rechter. Be sure to include your contact information as well.

Due to the large volume of submissions we receive, we cannot respond to every query. We will contact you within two weeks if we are interested in reading further.