Magic Thursday: A Successful Pitch with Lisa Rodrigues!

After 2 years of indie publishing, in late 2025 I threw my hat back in the ring for traditional publishing, with a round of in-person pitches at WA’s Festival of Fiction. I pitched to 4 of the big 5 publishing houses, and received requests for pages from all of them. It's up to my pages (and the fates!) if I go further, but my successful pitch is below.

 

The pitch

Buffy meets Bladerunner.

Neon Vamps is a spicy 80,000-word vampire romance with high suspense and a gritty cyberpunk feel perfect for lovers of JR Ward. [Swap out JR Ward for publishing house comparable book]

Nyx is a hacker with sensory sensitivity issues hiding her half-vampire nature AND hiding her sassy AI friend, who looks like 80s Madonna. They’re hiding from the technocrat vampire Houses who rule the prison city she lives in.

When Nyx’s sister goes missing she sets out to find her, exposing her to the Houses and the ruthless crime organisation, the Cursed Bloods and their hot alpha-hole leader Azazel.

Azazel sees Nyx as an asset against both the Houses and the fae outside the city. He uses and protects her, until they both succumb to the fierce connection they fight right until the ‘happy for now’ ending, that collides both their found families.

I work in government tech policy, I’m neurodivergent, and I grew up watching Buffy, reading sci-fi and going to goth clubs.

I’ve been published in short form since 2019, and in 2023 I won the RWA Spicy Bites award. This will be my first trad published full length novel, and a debut under my own name, with a series planned. 

Lisa's latest release is as L.A. Monteiro:

Claimed by the Orc

Book 6, Seasonal Spice

He can't trust her. But could she be the queen he needs?

The villainous orc Evan has betrayed everyone who once cared for him. Seeking redemption, he takes back his orcish name Gevrank, and returns to his home world to kill the Southern King who enslaved his people. But Tessa, a witch with her own dark past, follows him to seek her own revenge. When she fails, their fates entwine as Tessa's true mystic nature comes to light.

This enemies to lovers monster romance is the sizzling conclusion to the Seasonal Spice series, featuring orcs, mating, heats and shape-shifting. It can be read as a standalone but refers to events in previous books.

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Lisa Rodrigues

Lisa Rodrigues is a Paranormal Romance author based in Perth, Australia. She’s a neurodivergent Eurasian Australian, a goth, a burner and a sometimes acroyogi.

She works part-time in public tech policy, after ten years in marketing and communications, and is currently querying ‘Neon Vamps’.

​Visit Lisa's  website: ​lisarodrigueswrites.com