Paige Broadbent

UPDATED JULY 2026

I am an Associate Literary Agent with The Purcell Agency. Though the agency is based in the Chicago area, I am based in Chatham-Kent, Ontario, Canada. As such, though I’m open to great works by all, Canadian-authored works will receive bonus points (sorry)!

I have a wide range of interests and I’m currently building my list for Upper Middle Grade, Young Adult, New Adult, and Adult audiences. I’m interested in receiving submissions in the following genres: Thriller, Horror, Mystery, Western, Speculative Fiction (including Urban Fantasy), and select Romance (including Paranormal Romance). For specific requests and genre examples, see below.

SPECIAL REQUESTS

Historic Conspiracies
Any thriller/adventure centred around a well researched, probable ancient conspiracy. I’m talking sweeping historical mysteries like Atlantis, the Lost Colony of Roanoke, The Holy Grail, etc., with high stakes and society-altering revelations.

National Treasure (Turteltaub, 2004); The Sigma Force Series (Rollins); Uncharted (Naughty Dog); The Da Vinci Code (Brown)

Small Towns
I love living in and having grown up in a small rural town, so I welcome any story that takes place in one, especially if such a setting is treated as a character itself. Give me the beauty of small-town connections where—like a country song—everyone knows your name, but also the ugly underbelly they try to keep hidden. Bonus points for seaside tourist towns and/or a town with a lingering urban ledged or secret.

Fried Green Tomatoes (Avnet, 1991); Panic (Oliver, 2021); Where Things Come Back (Whaley); The Saturday Night Ghost Club (Davidson)

Nostalgia & Melancholy
Any story that can make me feel the way a 90’s Alternative One-Hit-Wonder can make me feel. Give me a restlessness—an itch I can’t quite scratch. Basements with pine panelling. Empty streets. Homesickness. Rust.
NOTE: This feeling is not exclusive to Historical Fiction!

Arcadia (Stoppard); What Remains of Edith Finch (Giant Sparrow); White Noise (DeLillo); The Haunting of Hill House (Flanagan, 2018)

Bending Time
Go ahead and play with the idea of time—break it, loop it, invert it, jump around—make it logical but not too technical: no diagrams with straws (IYKYK).

Malice (Dunn); Archive 81 (Sonnenshine, 2022); Frequency (Hoblit, 2000); Detention (Kahn, 2011)

Special Interests
I’m always going to be drawn to stories about pirates and/or treasure hunts, witches, and haunted or wicked amusement parks.

EXAMPLES

Thriller
She Rides Shotgun (Harper); The Bourne Identity (Ludlum); Now You See Me (Leterrier, 2013); The Gallager Girls Series (Carter)

Horror
House of Leaves (Danielewski); The Shinning (Kubrick, 1980); The Silent Hill Series (Konami)

Mystery
A Murder at the End of the World (Marling & Batmanglij, 2023); The Westing Game (Raskin); One of Us is Lying (McManus); House of Anubis (Bourlon & Verhulst, 2011)

Western
3:10 to Yuma (Mangold, 2007); Make Me No Grave (Stone); Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar); Whiskey When We’re Dry (Larison)

Speculative Fiction
Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993); 11/22/63 (King); The Hunger Games (Collins); Jumanji (Johnston, 1995)

Urban Fantasy
The Mortal Instruments Series (Clare); Wolfblood (Moon, 2012); Aquamarine (Rosenbaum, 2006); The Order of the Sanguines Series (Rollins & Cantrell)

Romance
Mr. Right (Cabezas, 2015); You’ve Got Mail (Ephron, 1998); One to Watch (Stayman-London); Becoming Rain (Tucker)

Paranormal Romance
Above the Shadows (Myers, 2019); The Hush, Hush Series (Fitzpatrick); Julie and the Phantoms (Cross & Hoge, 2020)

NOT FOR ME
Picture Books – see Amy Nielsen
Memoirs – see Tina P. Schwartz
High Fantasy – see Emma Levrau
Space Operas
Poetry
Religion/Faith

Guidelines & Details