Jemima Forrester
jemimaforrester@davidhigham.co.uk
Jemima is actively growing her list of commercial and upmarket fiction and has wide-ranging tastes within this space. She is looking for:
- book club and accessible literary fiction
- crime and thrillers
- upmarket historical fiction
- psychological suspense
- women’s fiction
- speculative/high-concept novels
- novels with a lightly magical or fantastical edge
Jemima does not represent children’s fiction, YA, epic fantasy, hard sci-fi, short stories or novellas.
Prior to joining David Higham in 2016, Jemima was Senior Commissioning Editor at Orion Publishing Group and working collaboratively and editorially with her authors is something she has brought into her role as an agent.
In fiction she loves distinctive narrative voices, well-paced plots with a great hook, and complex female characters. She’s often drawn to humour, quirky or unusual narrators, moral dilemmas and stories about sisters.
Her favourite non-client books of recent years include Sorrow and Bliss; Such a Fun Age; My Sister the Serial Killer; Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow; In Memoriam; The Familiars; The Night Circus; The Flat Share; and anything by Maggie O’Farrell, Margaret Atwood or Curtis Sittenfeld.
In non-fiction, she is looking for innovative lifestyle and popular-culture projects, unique personal stories and humour. Recent favourites include Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton, How To Murder Your Life by Cat Marnell and Help Me! by Marianne Power.
In both fiction and non-fiction, Jemima is actively seeking diverse voices and books with a strong feminist angle.
If you would like to submit your work to Jemima, please email jemimaforrester@davidhigham.co.uk. You should include a covering letter, a synopsis and the first three chapters of your book. Please put your name and the title of your manuscript in the subject line of your email.
Unfortunately, due to the volume of submissions she receives, Jemima isn’t able to respond to every one (though she does try!). If you haven’t heard back within 16 weeks please assume that you haven’t been successful this time.
