Donald Maass Literary Agency

Library Journal: A solid debut . . . For fans of hardboiled PIs with hearts of gold.

Booklist: At just about six months old (in a nineteen-year-old body), Nona lives a full life. She recounts her dreams to her protectors and works as a teacher’s aide at a local school. She’s been grudgingly accepted by a gang of streetwise kids and is trusted to watch a beloved teacher’s dog. At the edges of Nona’s life, glimpses of other truths occasionally slip through: there’s a giant blue sphere hanging in the sky, for one thing. Zombies are a problem. […]

Publishers Weekly: World Fantasy Award winner Polk (The Midnight Bargain) does what they do best with this genre-bending fantasy noir novella that brings lofty magic to a grimy 1940s city and showcases queer love along the way. Ten years earlier, warlock and private investigator Elena Brandt made a deal with the devil, bargaining away her soul to save the most precious thing in the world to her. Now she has only three days left before her deal is up and she […]

Library Journal: Marino demonstrates his skill as a storyteller, creating empathetic, fleshed-out characters who must fight through the madness that is bearing down on them…. VERDICT Marino is very willing to plumb the depths of human discomfort and nihilistic despair, revealing disturbing images that sear into the brain while showing how art, and sibling bonds, can both create and destroy.

Congratulations to our DMLA author who was nominated for the 2021 Shirley Jackson Awards! NOVEL Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw (Nightfire)

Publishers Weekly: Sparks fly in Tsai’s refreshing and enchanting paranormal debut. A sordid family past has driven gifted immortal Elle Mei, a descendant of Shénnóng, the Chinese god of medicine, into leading a quiet, unassuming life. Though Elle’s exceptional talent at magical calligraphy could easily earn her a lucrative career, she chooses to cover up the extent of her gift, hiding in plain sight as an “ordinary” glyphmaker in Raleigh, N.C. It’s the only way she knows how to protect […]

Nebula Award finalist Suzan Palumbo’s COUNTESS, a space opera pitched as a queer Caribbean Count of Monte Cristo, in which a betrayed Captain is set on a journey of revenge against the interplanetary Empire that has subjugated her people for generations, to Jenifer Albert at ECW Press, for publication in Spring 2024, by Michael Curry.

School Library Journal: This novel is sure to resonate with teens who haven’t yet found their calling and who are trying to figure out who they are.

Andy Marino’s next novel for adults, THE SWARM, an epic horror novel pitched as THE STAND meets JURASSIC PARK, about an insect apocalypse in which people are being attacked by swarms of out-of-season cicadas, and characters across the country, including a girl who seems to have a growing connection with the bugs, must work together to uncover the horrifying purpose behind the attacks, to Bradley Englert at Redhook, for publication Summer 2024, by Cameron McClure.

Library Journal: In Polk’s (Soulstar) alternate-history Jazz Age Chicago, where angels live among the godly and demons stalk the streets, Helen Brandt is a woman who sold her soul to save her brother. She has one last chance to get it back and spend the rest of her days with the woman she loves. She thinks her task is to figure out which demon is poaching on another’s Chicago turf. But demons lie—and so, as Helen discovers, do angels. This bittersweet […]