My focus is to find authors and books that will become future bestsellers and brands. I specialise in mysteries, suspense, thrillers, crime and book club fiction, but I’m also a huge fan of anything that embodies the natural world, speculative and epic high-concept stories.
Camilla joined the Agency in 2007 and was named as a publishing Rising Star by The Bookseller in 2013 and shortlisted for Literary Agent of the Year in 2022. She has built the fastest growing new commercial brands in the thriller market with five of her authors having sold over a million copies in the UK alone.
Her list includes many Sunday Times, New York Times and No.1 ebook global bestsellers. Her authors have been picked for Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Book Club, BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club and she’s had five Richard & Judy Book Club Picks. Multiple of her books have been adapted for the screen and shown on BBC 1, Channel 5 and Netflix.
As an Agent she works very closely with her authors both editorially and strategically in their career planning. She is dogged in getting the very best contract terms and top advance levels, negotiating six-figure and seven-figure deals in the UK and US.
Camilla studied Psychology and English Literature at Cardiff University. After gaining a distinction from the University of the Arts, she went on to work for a national newspaper before joining the Agency.
My focus is to find authors and books that will become future bestsellers and brands. I love mysteries, suspense, thrillers, crime. I am also really interested in book club fiction, for example Taylor Jenkins Reid and Liane Moriarty are personal favourites. I am a huge fan of anything that captures the natural world, as titles like Remarkably Bright Creatures by Selby Van Pelt do so cleverly. I don’t represent high fantasy, but I adore reading grounded speculative and epic high-concept stories such as the Justin Cronin series, Andy Weir titles, Hugh Howey.
The characters and stories I love all offer some form of escapism.
Character
I love a series and am searching for a new series character that has fresh expertise and intelligence in the commercial crime arena – a detective, a medical examiner, a PI, a forensic investigator, even a cyber specialist. The role doesn’t matter so much to me, what’s key is they make us, the reader, believe we are experts too.
In real life I know so many inspiring and remarkable women and I would love to find a new fictional female protagonist take on the crime thriller world and become a household name. I grew up obsessed with Patricia Cornwell’s Dr. Kay Scarpetta; she is super smart and such an authentic character – I was inspired by everything about her.
To counter an amazing protagonist, it is key to give your protagonist the absolute best opposition and make an antagonist a genius too. I love a battle of brains. The main character will always win and outsmart at the end, but it should never be easy getting there.
I’ve also been looking for an ensemble cast for a long time – I grew up reading Jilly Cooper, Maeve Binchy and watching Soldier, Soldier. A series with multiple characters to fall in love with, based around a self-contained world like the armed forces, where at the core of the stories you have loyalty, betrayal, death, love and friendship.
Richard Osman’s series and cast of characters are an amazing example of everything I’m looking for. It’s genius. He has incredible characters that are at the frontline of mortality in such a clever way; they have decades of knowledge and use this to laugh in the face of stereotype, whilst taking risks, watching each other’s backs and not listening to rules.
Plot
Please do submit any kind of thriller or thriller with a horror edge that takes a character through a life changing journey on top of throwing epic twists and turns and suspense at the reader.
Characters that have a personal story, have made mistakes and are having to face the reality and consequence of their decisions. S. A. Cosby’s Razorblade Tears is an incredible example of how character and plot can work beautifully and effortlessly together to elevate a story. And the genius classis, Misery by Stephen King does this remarkably with an addictive dark heart.
Dicken’s ghost novella A Christmas Carol is also a story that haunts and intrigues me.
The idea of looking back on a person’s life turning points and expanding on the ‘what if’ concept is something I’d love to explore, be it in a very voice driven book club title like The Time Traveller’s Wife, or as a huge page-turning thriller.
I would also love a plot that is set up with a big commercial accessible hook and as a reader you think you know what you’re going to read, and then bam! the plot totally keeps you on your toes. Catherine Ryan Howard’s The Nothing Man and 56 Days plus John Marrs The One are all titles that do this incredibly well.
Place
Nature in its raw dangerous beauty is something I adore in fiction.
To tell a gripping story where the natural world is as big a character as the protagonist is something I’d love to find.
This idea of place is why I loved Delia Owen’s Where the Crawdads Sing, Miranda Cowley Heller’s ThePaper Palace and Nicholas Evans’ The Horse Whisperer so much.
Entertainment
Most of all I’m looking for amazing authors who see themselves as long-term writers with an epic character at heart if it is a series, or for standalones lots of exciting, thrilling, surprising stories ahead. To gasp, shudder, cry and laugh on the same page is an incredible experience as a reader. For me, this is entertainment fiction.
Being a writer aiming for the commercial market means working in the business of entertainment and this is what I always pause on; together can we work on books that will entertain millions of readers worldwide?
