Romance

Romance is the genre where the love story carries the book. A meet, a complication, a choice, and an ending the reader has been promised from the first page. Writers seeking romance literary representation usually want someone who understands that contract and will not ask them to soften it.

The category runs from historical to contemporary to new adult, and the heat level varies as much as the setting. What holds it together is the relationship at the centre, and the reader's expectation that it will be resolved.

Who are the best agents for romance novels?

BookEnds Literary and Nelson Literary both represent romance as a core category, not an afterthought. Selwa Anthony works with romance from Australia, which can suit writers outside the US market. Madeleine Milburn and Transatlantic Agency take romance within a broader commercial fiction list.

Which romance literary agents accept new authors?

Several of the agencies here read unsolicited submissions from debut romance writers, though each sets its own terms. BookEnds Literary and Nelson Literary are known for working with authors early in their careers. Check what each agency asks for before you send anything.

Are there literary agents for new adult romance?

New adult romance sits between young adult and adult, with protagonists in their late teens and twenties. Some agents here represent it, others treat it as adult romance with younger characters. Say clearly in your query where your book sits, because the answer changes who reads it.

Romance agents read for the emotional payoff first: two people meet, resist, and the story has to earn its ending. BookEnds Literary and Nelson Literary both work in this space, and Selwa Anthony, working out of Australia, brings a Southern Hemisphere eye to love stories. Madeleine Milburn and Transatlantic Agency handle romance alongside commercial fiction, which matters if your manuscript sits between categories. What separates these agents from the ones working in Science Fiction or Fantasy is the contract with the reader: in romance, the central relationship is the plot, not a subplot, and the ending is a promise, not a surprise. Children's and Comics agents may take a romance thread inside a larger story, but they are not looking for the genre itself. New adult romance, with its characters in their late teens and twenties, sits in a gap some of these agents fill and others do not.