Juliet Mushens – Submissions Wishlist
The Mushens Entertainment founder breaks down what she looks for in a submission, and what she’s hoping to find in the submissions inbox.
I recently reopened to submissions after being closed for 5 months and I am hungry to find new talent. Many of the biggest books and authors of my career have come from my slushpile – like ST and NYT number 1 bestseller THE MINIATURIST by Jessie Burton or multimillion copy bestseller Taran Matharu’s SUMMONER series – so I’m always looking for the big brands of the future. I am never overly prescriptive in terms of what I’m looking for, so don’t get too worried about whether your book precisely fits anything I’ve specifically mentioned. I’m a generalist and as long as it’s in a genre I’m actively looking for, I’d love to dive in and be surprised and swept away.
FANTASY
I’m President of the British Fantasy Society and my first job was working at the legendary imprint HarperVoyager, so I’m always going to be interested in a broad array of speculative fiction. My taste tends towards the epic, whether that’s courtly intrigue and magic like in A Game of Thrones, or more character-led like Robin Hobb. My favourite recent read in the genre was The Poet Empress by Shen Tao. My fantasy list is a good indicator of things I love in the genre:
Monsters and dragons and fantastical creatures
Clever magical systems
Retellings of classics with a gender-flipped twist
Bad guys using their powers for good
Sexy men and women being sexy whilst also using magic and trying to save the world
Witches and vampires
Anything with a pseudo-historical setting (particularly the French Revolution, blame my history degree)
Dystopian settings, trials, mazes, labyrinths, magical academies
Folklore and myth
Dark, dark, dark
Non-Western settings
Magical settings which nod to the 1920s onwards, as well as classic medieval/early modern (one of my hobbies is swing dancing and vintage fashion so I LOVE pseudo 20s-50s worlds.)
A lot of my authors have had their novels in sub boxes and many of them have been Sunday Times bestsellers, or hit the NYT or USA Today list. My taste is definitely commercial - as evidenced by so many people reading them! - but I particularly like upmarket writing, smart prose, complex characters.
SUSPENSE
I absolutely love the genre in all of its different ways and between them my crime/thriller writers have sold millions of copies and
been shortlisted for pretty much every crime award going. Outside of my own list, I’m a big fan of historical crime like CJ Sansom, adventure-thrillers like Jack Reacher, psychological suspense, upmarket thriller, serial killers, legal dramas, or reading group suspense. Crime/thriller/legal shows are the ones I watch most on TV, without a doubt. Favourites there would be: Line of Duty, Dark Winds, Black Snow, The Good Fight, Criminal Justice, Unforgotten, Broadchurch. I love small towns with dark secrets, novels where the setting is as much a character as the people (Attica Locke always does this SO well), police procedurals with a point of difference (Dark Winds is a good example of this), elite settings where evil lurks. I also like genre-bending thrillers and I’ve had success with thrillers in a fantasy world and speculative thrillers. I like translated fiction like Lullaby by Leïla Slimani or Butter by Asako Yuzuki: books which use suspense as a jumping off point to explore culture.
COMMERCIAL FICTION
I’m a commercial gal at heart and though I do lean towards upmarket writing I always want it to have a page-turning plot. I like high concept novels where there’s a clear call-to-adventure or through-line. I love weepy love stories (In Memoriam was a recent fave), complex characters whose decisions you understand even if you don’t agree with them, sprawling family sagas like the Thorn Birds, or clever sexy romance novels. I like books about books! Bookshops, libraries, you name it, I’m into it. I am also drawn to books which are grounded in our world but have a slight speculative edge e.g. The Time Traveller’s Wife. I like messy family dramas, women later in life having to confront the choices they made when they were younger, books about female creativity, books about siblings. If it makes me cry or laugh, I’ll probably be into it.
HISTORICAL FICTION
I did a history degree at Cambridge and specialised in gender and race. I’m interested in books across the time periods and across the world. I’d love to find something sprawling and character-led that deals with the British Empire in India, WWI and its societal aftermath, or anything French Revolution. I’m interested in periods we think we know about but with unexpected twists or voices. I love to read about characters who live in the margins. I am actively looking for historical thrillers and also love historical fantasy and historical romance. Favourite authors include: Philippa Gregory, Marlon James, Hilary Mantel, CJ Sansom, Sarah Waters. I like timeslip novels too, particularly Outlander.
UPMARKET / BOOK CLUB FICTION
I am a member of my local book group and am always looking for a read which forces me to ask difficult moral question or where we can fiercely debate a character and their decisions. I love beautiful writing and provocative questions. I like fiction which makes me feel uncomfortable! I don’t like books which are gratuitously bleak and depressing, but enjoy exploring the darker underbelly of society, particularly if shot through with black humour. Recent favourites include: Vladimir by Julia May Jonas, My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. Books which epitomise my taste in this area are: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, Room by Emma Donoghue, We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Schriver. I’m a big fan of big sprawling American novels (like if Legends of the Fall was a book), and also love book club American fiction about complex women like Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, The Paper Palace or Where the Crawdads Sing.
Whether it’s romance, literary, or fantasy/dystopian I am always interested in FANFICTION AUTHORS or “Do not cite the deep magic to me, Witch; I was there when it was written.”
I like to say that Buffy fandom partially raised me, back in the AOL mailing list days. I grew up reading (and writing, VERY BADLY) Spike/Willow fanfiction and Angel/Spike. I then moved on to Harry Potter fandom with a particular fondness for Draco/Ron (there are maybe 20 of us out there, I know) and Remus/Sirius. I also loved Xena, The OC, Star Wars, Inception, Avengers, Smallville, James Bond. You name it, I’ve read some weird AUs in it.
I think my favourite fanfiction queers heteronormative settings, or gives a voice and agency to female characters who were, often, in the 90s and 00s, criminally underwritten. The best sex scenes I have ever read are in fanfiction! I love anything which is playful with gender, or just winks at the original work before developing its own magical system and rules and setting. I love angst, yearning, sexy sex where the feelings are the most important part, elaborate world-building AUs, and funny funny voice-y works. Forced proximity! Arranged marriage! Dark and tortured pasts! Angst!!!
ANYTHING ELSE
I represent horror, upmarket love-stories, literary coming-of-age novels, and everything in between. I’ve sold space operas and ghost stories and quirky crime and WW2 sagas. I’m always looking for a novel which keeps me reading late into the night and which I’m desperate to press into the hands of everyone I know. I have had success with Wattpad authors, fanfiction writers and taking previously self-published authors to global deals and ST bestseller positions.
I’m a hard-working, very creative agent who’s in it for the long-term - and I like to say I’ll bring a lot of humour and warmth along the way!