As promised, this page lists a few of our favorite books in each category that we’d love to see in our Pitch Wars inbox this year! For those of you who don’t know about it, Pitch Wars is a mentoring program where published/agented authors, editors, or industry interns choose one writer each to spend three months revising their manuscript. It ends in February with an Agent Showcase, where agents can read a pitch/first page and can request to read more.

If you haven’t stopped by my co-mentor Kara McDowell’s page, you absolutely should! Start there! On Kara’s page, we explained the categories we are interested in this year. Here we’ve listed some great books we love and some potential comp titles we might be looking for. Kara and I are suckers for a great hook and strong characters. If you have something like that and it falls within the genres we’re looking for, we’d love to take a look!!!

Contemporary:

You’d Be Mine by Erin Hahn

American Panda by Gloria Chao 

Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Solomon

Hearts, Strings, and Other Breakable Things by Jacqueline Firkens 

Anne and Henry by Dawn Ius 

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han

Don’t Date Rosa Santos by Nina Morena 

When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandyha Menon

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicole Yoon

If You’re Out There by Katy Loutzenheiser

Above is a picture of contemporary book covers we mention on our list. All books are pictured side by side.

Thriller: 

One of Us Is Lying by Karen McManus

Little Monsters by Kara Thomas

Death Prefers Blondes by Caleb Roehrig

Overdrive by Dawn Ius

With Malice by Eileen Cook

See All the Stars by Kit Frick

All Your Twisted Secrets by Diana Urban 

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

The Best Lies by Sarah Lyu 

The Window by Amelia Brunskill

Above is a picture of thriller book covers that we mention on our list. All books are pictured side by side.

Light Fantasy/Paranormal/Magical Realism 

While we love fantasy like Six of Crows and The Cruel Prince, those are too high fantasy for us to take on. Instead, we’d love to see something set in our world with a fantastical or paranormal twist. Think Opposite of Always by Justin Reynolds, Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater, or Vampires, Hearts, and Other Dead Things by Margie Fuston. (Fuston was Kimberly’s 2018 mentee and has a 2021 release date!)

If your book comps one or more of these YA titles, we definitely want to see it! That said, if you don’t see your comps on here, that doesn’t mean we won’t fall in love with it! We have a wide variety of interests and all we need is an amazing story and voice to get sucked in.