Jessica Alvarez

Senior Literary Agent - Foreign Rights Director
(she/her/hers)

After ten years as an editor, Jessica Alvarez joined BookEnds in April 2011. She began her publishing career in 2001 as an editorial assistant at Harlequin Books. There, she had the opportunity to acquire and edit a wide array of fiction, specializing in historical romance, romantic suspense, and inspirational romance. Jessica left Harlequin in 2008 to pursue a freelance editing career, and completed projects for Harlequin, Scholastic Books, Thomas Nelson, and independent writers. She is a member of AALA and uses her editorial background to help writers hone their skills and develop strong, marketable books.

Jessica read her first romance at the age of nine when she pilfered from a friend's mother's Harlequin Presents collection and was instantly hooked. Though her pilfering has passed, her weakness for alpha heroes and exotic settings remains.

A New Jersey native, Jessica still resides in the Garden State. She is perpetually over-caffeinated in an attempt to keep up with her son and three energetic dogs. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, swimming, watching bad (but oh so good!) television, and volunteering with Rescue Dogs Rock NYC.

You can follow Jessica on Twitter. Queries should be submitted here.

Jessica is actively building her client list. Her areas of interest include most areas of romance, romantic comedies, upmarket fiction, women's fiction, and cozy mysteries. She's particularly eager to grow her nonfiction list. You can find more specifics about what she's looking for in her wishlist below. See below for some of the titles available from Jessica's talented team of writers. You can also look at Publishers Marketplace for more information on recent deals. Watch our interview with Jessica on YouTube!

Books

Jessica Alvarez Wishlist

Jessica is looking for a wide range of prescriptive and narrative nonfiction, but is particularly looking for unique, entertaining voices--think Mary Roach or Sarah Vowell. She’d like to see more self-help, pop science and true crime, and projects related to food, including cookbooks. While she is open to memoir, please note that platform and hook are crucial. Jessica would like to see more projects relating to body image, women's issues, and LGBTQ+ topics. In terms of fiction, she wants romance of all heat levels (including inspirational and category romance), rom coms, upmarket fiction, women's fiction, and cozy mysteries. She's open to light and funny reads, as well as darker ones. Across the board, she's looking for books that celebrate diversity in all its forms, and would love to see projects with BIPOC and LGBTQ+ characters. In no particular order, she'd especially love to see more books featuring adoption issues, the Amish, coroners and morticians, physically and emotionally tortured heroes, and women who kick ass. Please note that Jessica is not looking for paranormals, sci-fi/fantasy, young adult or children's books at this time. Check out Jessica's #MSWL tweets and #MSWL posts on the BookEnds site or her wishlist section below for more specifics on what she wants to represent. To submit to Jessica, please go to the following link: https://querymanager.com/query/JessicaAlvarez

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