Thais Afonso is a literary agent with Azantian Literary Agency.
Thais has eight years of experience in publishing between Brazil, China, and the United States. More recently, she interned at Writers House, where she honed her skills while supporting the desks of Amy Berkower and Johanna Castillo, and she was mentored by Jennifer Azantian before stepping up to the Associate Agent role at ALA.
She intends to represent marginalized authors, and she’s especially seeking to uplift indigenous voices and voices from the Global South.
WISHLIST:
Thais is looking to represent Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Horror, Contemporary Romance, and Suspense/Thrillers. She’s particularly keen on growing her contemporary and horror list right now, so if you have a project that doesn’t have any of her triggers and hard ‘no’s, send it to her! Even if it doesn’t a match an item in the wish list. She very much welcomes surprises here (again, as long as there are no elements from her anti-MSWL).
ADULT FICTION:
In Horror, she’s still looking for lesbians, lesbians, lesbians. Plus, the unsettling, the Gothic, folkloric horror, horror mixed with fantasy or romance, and all the social horror.
She would especially love vampire horror, like House of Hunger and Our Share of Night, or anything borderline Literary but super weird, like Our Wives Under the Sea and Chlorine. She’s also seeking space horror: anything that could be comped to Alien: Romulus or Ghost Station, and anything underwater. She would love a deep ocean first contact horror!! Lastly, while she’s also not big on gore, she would love to see some gory body horror in the vein of The Substance.
In Suspense and Thrillers, she’s looking for anything pacey, tense, and completely unrelated to law enforcement. Anything that could be comped to Jane Pek’s The Rivals, Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods, Freida McFadden’s The Crash, and Kashana Cauley’s upcoming The Payback would be a plus. She’s also still eagerly seeking lesbian thrillers, especially anything that could be pitched as Master of the House, but lesbian. She’s also still looking for anything that could be pitched as BIPOC Dan Brown (meaning that same formula, but with different themes and relationships between the characters and the world).
In Contemporary Romance, she’s ever eager to sign queer authors, and especially lesbians of color like her. She’s mostly seeking single-title romance dramas and rom-coms with character arcs that have a lot of depth. If you can comp your book to Emily Henry, Tia Williams, Alison Cochrum, B.K. Borison, Kennedy Ryan, Jessica Joyce, Ashley Herring Blake, or Abby Jimenez, it’ll probably appeal to her. In sports romance, she’d love a rivals-to-lovers, queer romance. And as a Brazilian, she’d grew up watching F1 and as niche as that is, would love a romance with a Brazilian pilot trying to live up to Senna’s legacy.
All of that said, she’s still actively growing her science fiction & fantasy list.
In Sci-Fi, she gravitates towards fun and snappy romps like Murderbot, but she would also love to see stories that tackle Global North interventionism in the Global South, and subversions of Global North competency being the norm—think Monarch from the perspective of a civilian in the Global South instead of an agent of an uber secretive and authoritarian GN agency, or anything you’d comp to Nnedi Okorafor. She also enjoys cyberpunk, solarpunk, and silkpunk (though she’s removed those categories from her form to streamline her tags, she still wants those!). Anti-capitalism continues to be welcomed and appreciated.
She’s looking for almost all sub-genres of Fantasy, except Grimdark and Military. She’s keen on anti-colonial Epics, High-Fantasy set in the Global South, retellings of Global Majority Myths, Sci-Fi Fantasies in the vein of Arcane, and historicals that feels almost Second World, like Siren Queen.
She also loves cozy, whimsical stories, like The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches or the Emily Wilde series, and would love anything that can be comped to The Spellshop or The Teller of Small Fortunes as well.
She’s especially looking for steamy Romantasy at this time, as that’s a gap in her list. BIPOC Romantasy, in particular, is something that she’s super hungry for. I’d love to see worlds inspired by different takes on Fae and Vampires, or just different worlds altogether as the backdrop to a super spicy romance. She’s on taking on indie authors who want to transition to trad or have a hybrid career, especially again, indie BIPOC authors in Romantasy.
YOUNG ADULT:
In YA, she’s currently open to Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Horror, and Speculative Mysteries/Thrillers. She’s predominantly interested in anything with a speculative bent. She’s also especially keen on championing Queer voices in this space, especially BIPOC Queer voices.
She’s also super keen on building a horror list in the category. If you can comp your manuscript to Justina Ireland, Krystal Sutherland, Jamison Shea, C.G. Andrews, Trang Thanh Tran, Andrew Joseph White, Courtney Gould, Tiffany D. Jackson, Vincent Tirado, or Kalynn Baron, she’d love to see it.
She’s still actively and enthusiastically seeking YA SFF, she’s just really hungry for horror right now.
In SFF, she’s always on the look-out for Global South authors, especially when it comes to stories about oppression. In Sci-Fi, she’s looking for anything fun. Epic adventures in space, dark academia in space, anything that feels like anime. She still loves anti-capitalist and anti-colonialist themes here, but she’s not a great fit for heavy dystopia or post-apocalyptic stories in YA either.
In Fantasy, she’s specially looking for crossover titles, and if there’s a competition, she’ll probably love it, unless it’s a marriage competition. She’s not the best fit for those in YA. On the very specific wish list item spectrum, she would love something that feels like Alwyn Hamilton’s Notorious Virtues. She’s also seeking a crossover YA/NA high-concept romantasy, something that puts a new twist on beloved tropes, or sets a familiar love story in an original, lush world, like Divine Rivals.
In Mystery/Thrillers, give her anything that would crossover into horror because of supernatural elements. Anything you’d comp to Invocations, for example. She’d also love to see a speculative take on a story similar to The Reappearance of Rachel Price.
Across all genres, Thais is especially interested in intersectionality. She wants to sign working class, Queer, BIPOC, disabled authors, and is keen on supporting authors whose marginalization intersect with other marginalizations, as she knows the paths to success in this industry get more limited if you have an intersectional identity.
She’s very keen on indigenous stories across age categories and in all genres—To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, Elatsoe, and Firekeeper’s Daughter are recent favorites, but she wants stories that don’t match any comps too. Thais especially wants to represent Global South authors. As someone born and raised and based in Brazil, Thais seeks to put Global South stories front and center, as she believes those voices are more needed than ever. She’s also, in both age categories and across all genres, committed to supporting Palestinian authors, whenever they are ready and able to share their stories—she’s always open to queries for Palestinian authors.
She is a fan of:
Dark Academia from Global South writers, and Black and Indigenous writers in the Global North.
A high-drama, high-stakes romance that feels like a K-Drama. Think Crash Landing on Love or Tastefully Yours.
A queer rival-to-lovers sports romance.
Anything with a complicated, decades-long (or even centuries long if Fantasy/Paranormal) lesbian situationship at the core of the story. I specially welcome Siuan/Moiraine fanfiction at this difficult time.
I prefer my spice on the kinkier side, and I would really love to find a romantasy with consensual, sex-positive, queer-friendly (gender essentialist language is a big no for me) BDSM. Authors with deep knowledge of kink beyond D/s and light dirty talking will definitively have me picking up that manuscript so fast.
I would especially love to find a sapphic romantasy on the fun, smutty side. Something with an indie flavor. Think Sierra Simone’s The Fae Queen’s Captive.
I’m still looking for a BIPOC vampire horror with social commentary. Anything in the vein of The Wicked and The Willing or Sinners. I’d love vampires from BIPOC authors in general, actually. Even if it’s not social horror, send it to me.
In Thrillers, I’m still looking for anything that could described as BIPOC Dan Brown.
Body horror!
She does NOT want:
Military SFF, Literary Fiction, and non-speculative Historical Fiction in any age category.
Cops (MCs in law-enforcement/intelligence work is usually an easy pass for me).
Positive spins on war, Monarchy, colonization, or genocide (in general, I usually shy away from main characters who are soldiers or warriors or Monarchs).
Zionist and imperialist propaganda.
Racist, queerphobic, Islamophobic, and anti-semitic tropes.
Mafia books.
Dark romance or romance with any sort of dubious consent.
Enemies to lovers where the enmity comes with major power imbalance and/or any form of systemic oppression, and relationships that involve indenture and debts that need to be repaid.
Books about Indigenous people if you’re not a culturally connected member of those Indigenous communities. That specially applies to Indigenous Brazilians, as I’m proud to see my country shifting away from appropriated Indigenous stories being repacked as folklore and ‘good savage’ narratives that have only caused harm.
