Maria Brannan
Maria works with Sam handling translation rights on behalf of Greyhound Literary's clients and is building her own list of authors. She previously spent over five years working as a literary scout at Maria B. Campbell Associates in London, where she advised international publishers in over 12 countries on the adult and children's publishing market, and scouted multiple books for their film/tv client, Netflix.
Maria has very wide ranging tastes in fiction and is interested in writing for adult, new adult/crossover and YA readers.
She loves character-driven novels with a commercial bent that spark imagination or discussion and is always looking for stories that explore under-represented and diverse experiences with authenticity and sensitivity.
She has a passion for genre fiction – especially all kinds of fantasy, whether that be epic, cosy, dark or romantic– that has memorable characters and vivid world-building (Six of Crows, Best Served Cold, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries); horror with a unique concept or perspective that can send a chill down your spine (Into the Drowning Deep, The Only Good Indians); and softer, genre-crossing science fiction that explores the experience of being human (The After Wife, Station Eleven). She is also keen on voice-led and emotive reading group and upmarket fiction (Boy Swallows Universe, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow); contemporary YA that dives into all the excitement and heartache of adolescence (Completely Normal (and Other Lies), Loveless); love stories and rom-coms that make you fall for both the leads (Frederica, The Love Hypothesis); unnerving, twisty crime writing (The Whisper Man, She Lies in Wait); thrillers with a great hook that will leave you floored (The Last House on Needless Street, The Silent Patient) and anything with a high concept, speculative or gothic edge (The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, Tell Me an Ending).
On the nonfiction side, she is drawn to anything that draws the reader into the immediacy and tangibility of an author’s personal experiences (Unnatural Causes, Notes on Heartbreak); history and biography that explores overlooked or underrepresented people and events (The Five, Three-Martini Afternoons at the Ritz); and nature and science writing that evokes fascination and wonder in the reader (How to Catch a Mole, Endless Forms), books that intrigue and act as a door into underexplored or unfamiliar worlds.
Some of her old and new favourite authors in fiction and nonfiction include: Alice Oseman, John Green, Chloe Gong, Sabaa Tahir, Namina Forna, Patrick Ness, S. A. Chakraborty, Garth Nix, Erin Morganstern, Tamora Pierce, Joe Abercrombie, Scott Lynch, Alex North, S J Bolton, Alex Pavesi, Stuart Turton, Trent Dalton, Jo Harkin, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Sara Jafari, Kiley Reid, Bonnie Garmus, Jodi Picoult, Jenny Han, Ali Hazelwood, Beth O'Leary, Georgette Heyer, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Stephen Graham Jones, and Mira Grant. And in nonfiction: Jessica Pan, Marc Hamer, Seiran Summers, Adam Kay, Richard Shepherd, Helen Forrester, Livia Bitton-Jackson, Dolly Alderton, Hallie Rubenhold, Kate Summerscale, David Olusoga, Caroline Criado Perez and Patrick Roberts.
