Shelly Romero

Azantian Literary Agency

My Manuscript Wish List®

Submission Guidelines

I am seeking MG, YA, and adult novels, especially those by BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ authors. Her MSWL below is by-no means exhaustive. If your manuscript does not quite fit in with what’s listed below but is still in the vein of, please submit it.

  • FICTION
  • horror (almost all the subgenres & especially for all age categories!)
  • Honduran authors
  • thrillers/mysteries
  • commercial fiction
  • slice-of-life à la One Tree Hill, the OG Gossip Girl, The Sandlot, Real Women Have Curves
  • sci-fi
  • spec fic
  • erotic novels, especially featuring BIPOC and/or LGBTQIA characters in kink spaces
  • set during college and non-college post-high school stories
  • coming-of-age
  • cults
  • gothic romance
  • midwestern gothic
  • vampires
  • stories by Latine/x authors from Central America and the Caribbean
  • fantasy (picky with second-world fantasies)
  • high concept
  • comped to classic Disney Channel Original Movies
  • comped to some of my favorite movies or in their same vein
  • southern gothic
  • playing with formatting such as mixed-media & epistolary novels that give the story a “found footage” type of vibe
  • anything comped to Guillermo del Toro, David Cronenberg, or Clive Barker
  • character-driven stories
  • multiple povs
  • historical fiction set during the Edwardian and Victorian eras but featuring BIPOC and queer characters; post-Civil War; in the 80s through the 00s
  • secret societies/clubs/organizations
  • sororities
  • comped to Balder’s Gate 3 or Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
  • Please don’t send me:
  • picture books, chapter books, or graphic novels
  • historical fiction set during WWII
  • books over 100K words
  • commercial romance
  • stories featuring Nazis, Zionists, ICE, republican government employees, cops, military etc.
  • “clean” teen novels
  • stories centered on religions
  • novels-in-verse
  • deportation fiction & nonfiction
  • nonfiction including business, politics, memoirs, biographers, etc.
  • stories comp’d to the MCU/DCU
  • anything AI/android related
  • Westerns
  • missing women who are BIPOC due to trafficking, murder, honor killings, etc.
  • super gritty dramas

A few of my favorite reads:

  • Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine
  • NINTH HOUSE series by Leigh Bardugo
  • DON’T DATE ROSA SANTOS by Nina Moreno
  • MEXICAN GOTHIC by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
  • CATRACHOS by Roy G. Guzmán
  • FAKE BLOOD by Whitney Gardner
  • A DISOVERY OF WITCHES by Deborah Harkness
  • THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS by Stephen Graham Jones
  • LIBERTAD by Bessie Florez Zaldíver
  • DAISY JONES & THE SIX by Taylor Jenkins Reid

A “few” of my favorite movies:

  • Scream (1996)
  • Event Horizon (1997)
  • The Crow (1994)
  • Constantine (2005)
  • Crimson Peak (2015)
  • Nosferatu (2024)
  • Hellraiser (1987)
  • Knives Out (2019)
  • Pride & Prejudice (2005)
  • Hell House LLC. (2015)
  • Legally Blonde (2001)
  • The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
  • Silent Hill (2006)
  • Crash (1996)
  • The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)

Guidelines & Details

Vital Info

@_smromero

sh**********@bs**.social“>@shellyromero@bsky.social

Website

Associate Literary Agent

Fiction:

Action/Adventure, Children's, Commercial, Fantasy, General, Horror, Humor, LGBTQ, Middle Grade, Mystery, Psychological Thriller, Science Fiction, Thriller, Young Adult

Favorite sub-genres:

#ownvoices, #wndb, AAPI Fantasy, AAPI Horror, AAPI Sci-Fi, Adult, Adult Horror, Adult Rom Com, Adult Romantasy, Adult SFF, BIPOC, BIPOC Fantasy, BIPOC Horror, BIPOC Mystery, BIPOC Sci-Fi, Contemporary Romance, Contemporary YA, Diaspora Narratives, Diversity, Gothic Fantasy, Gothic Horror, High Concept, High-concept YA, High-concept YA/MG, Horror Comedy, Humor, LGBT YA, LGBTQ Contemporary, LGBTQ Romance, LGBTQ+, LGBTQ+ Fantasy, LGBTQ+ Sci-Fi, LGBTQ+ rom coms, Latine Diaspora, Latinx Fantasy, Latinx Horror, Latinx Sci-Fi, Latinx stories, MG Action Adventure, MG Fantasy, MG Horror, MG adventure, MG contemporary, MG mystery, Magical Realism, Magical Realism YA, Middle Grade Horror, Monsters, Multiple POV, Mysteries, Own Voices, POC, Paranormal, Paranormal Horror, Paranormal Romance, Paranormal Thriller, Psychological Thrillers, SWANA Fantasy, SWANA Horror, SWANA Sci-Fi, SciFi Romance, Science Fiction YA, Second World SF, Sexuality, Soft Fantasy, South Asian, South East Asian Literature, Southern Fiction, Southern Gothic, Space Opera, Speculative, Speculative Fiction, Speculative Thriller, Supernatural, Supernatural Elements, Supernatural Horror, Suspense, Techno-Horror, Thrillers, Underrepresented Voices, Upmarket Fiction, Upmarket YA, Urban Fantasy, YA, YA Contemporary, YA Crossover, YA Fantasy, YA Mystery, YA Rom-Coms, YA fantasy/light sci-fi, YA horror, Young Adult, bilingual, coming of age, contemporary, dark academia, dark fantasy, diasporic, gothic romance, horror, light Sci-Fi, science fiction, science fiction horror, small-town romance, space horror, speculative slice of life, spooky mg, tropes tropes tropes, weird fiction, whodunnit, witchcraft, witches

I’d like the next…

My favorites include…

Books

  • Ninth House
  • Fake Blood
  • Don’t Date Rosa Santos
  • The Kingdom
  • Love Sugar Magic
  • Mexican Gothic
  • Catrachos
  • The Grishaverse books
  • The Blue Bloods series
  • The Vampire Academy series

Movies

  • Knives Out
  • Crimson Peak
  • Scream
  • The Crow
  • Phantom of the Megaplex
  • Don’t Look Under The Bed
  • The Mummy
  • The Devil Wears Prada

Shows

  • Succession
  • The Expanse
  • Bob’s Burgers
  • Schitt’s Creek
  • Diary of a Future President
  • One Day at a Time
  • Los Espookys