Louise Buckley

I love both commercial and literary fiction but especially:

-I like novels that focus on the underdog, the repressed, the suppressed. I am especially interested in novels that represent working-class people or children going through difficult circumstances (think Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, My Name is Leon by Kit de Waal or Boys Don’t Cry by FÍona Scarlett).

-I am known for representing Irish literary and book-club fiction and I would very much welcome submissions from Irish authors writing upmarket fiction featuring characters that I can’t help but root for. Think Claire Keegan, Louise Kennedy or Anne Griffin.

-I have a soft spot for novels featuring time-travel or parallel universes, a ‘what if’ that plays around with conventions. At the literary end this would be books like Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes or This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. At the more commercial end I loved Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister, Dark Matter by Blake Crouch and Oona Out of Order by Martina Montimore. I also enjoy novels set in the real world but featuring a hefty dose of magic or the supernatural. They can be commercial or literary, present-day or historical. Think Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch, Threadneedle by Cari Thomas, A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness or The Gifts by Liz Hyder.

-I am a big crime and thriller fan and welcome submissions in this area. At the moment I am especially enjoying reading cosy or humorous crime. Recently, I absolutely loved Over My Dead Body by Maz Evans, which had me laughing out loud, utterly gripped and yet with a tear in my eye at the end. When I was an editor I published the hit Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll and I’d love to represent incisive, intelligent suspense written by authors such as Jessica Knoll and Gillian Flynn, or something a little more subversive and blackly comic like My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite.

-More generally, I would also love to see novels with a disabled protagonist or someone (like myself) who is living with an invisible disability. As an ex-primary school teacher, I also warmly welcome submissions from teachers, especially if the submission falls into one of the other categories I have listed. Following-on from this, I enjoy reading stories that follow a ‘beating the system’ narrative.

-In non-fiction, I would love to represent some memoir. I enjoyed Lowborn by Kerry Hudson and Educated by Tara Westover and would especially welcome memoirs from disabled writers.

Submission Guidelines

To submit to me, please follow the guidelines on the HS-LA website and fill in the form on there.

Guidelines & Details