Melissa Rechter

With over six years of industry experience at an independent publisher of genre fiction, Melissa Rechter 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. She now works at Poisoned Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks, and is looking for the following genres:

• lighthearted mysteries: particularly keen on projects in the vein of Jesse Q. Sutanto’s DIAL A FOR AUNTIES or FINLAY DONOVAN.
• 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 psychological horror or social horror – a la Jordan Peele’s Get Out or Alyssa Cole’s When No One is Watching. 
• Cozy fantasy: whether it’s a grounded version of our world, or a second world, I’m open to seeing projects that feel like a warm mug of tea. In the vein of A Dark and Secret Magic and The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society. 
• Dark fantasy: In the vein of Ninth House or An Arcane Inheritance. Would love to see projects that center around dark academia, or feminist protagonists subverting gender norms.
• Projects that explore found families, grief, and trauma in those fantasy or speculative spaces. 
• 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. 
• Would love to find a novel that explores the toxicity and usage of Scheele’s Green or Paris Green, in a horror novel.