Holly Race - Editor
Holly Race is an author and a script editor for television and film.
Her YA urban fantasy trilogy MIDNIGHT’S TWINS was published by Hot Key Books between 2020 and 2022 and her debut adult fantasy SIX WILD CROWNS was published by Orbit UK and USA in June 2025. Before becoming an author, Holly worked for nearly a decade as a script reader for a wide range of production companies, including Working Title, the BFI and Pathé. She has a Diploma in Script Development from the prestigious NFTS and cut her teeth working in the film department of Aardman Animations. Since then, she has worked as a development editor for Red Planet Pictures and as a development executive at Andy Serkis’ Imaginarium Studios. Holly is currently a Royal Literary Fund Fellow, attached to Cambridge University’s Earth Sciences and History and Philosophy of Science departments. You can find her on Instagram at @hollyracebooks.
If you’d like to work with Holly, get in touch with our Writers Support team; tell us about your book and what you’d like support with, and we’ll help you identify your next steps.
Testimonials
- Jane S.
Why we love Holly
Holly is a powerhouse of writing talent. When she’s not working on her YA fantasy, she’s working across the medium of script and screenwriting – both as a writer and an editor. In fact, she’s hosted two webinars for us on the topic: Writing Screenplays 101 and From Moodboard to Chapter: Using Films to Inspire your Novel. Holly is always thrilled to help you take your manuscript to the finishing line – whether that involves structural changes, or adding some sparkle.
What Holly says about editing
For a writer, there’s little better than those moments when you figure out the perfect way to express your story. For an editor, there’s a genuine thrill in helping a writer to reach those moments. It’s the magic of being a creative sounding board.
I understand how frightening it can be to show your writing to a stranger. But as the graduate of a novel writing course, I also know that feedback from a safe, honest and experienced pair of eyes is invaluable.
My priority will always lie in making the most of the story you want to tell. I certainly don’t believe that there is only one correct way of writing. I won’t tell you exactly what to do, only make suggestions and explain the reasoning behind them. It’s crucial that you always feel ownership over your work.
I love reaiIng YA, fantasy (and YA fantasy!) as well as scripts of any genre. I also have a soft spot for speculative fiction. I offer editorial and submission pack assessments as well as mentoring and line-editing.
What Holly works on
Manuscript Assessment
Agent Submission Pack assessment
Post-editorial guidance
Opening Section Review
Genres Holly specialises in
Holly's published books
Midnight’s Twins
Fern King is about to uncover a place that she could not have imagined in all her wildest dreams. Annwn is the dream mirror of our world, a place where Dreamers walk in their slumber, their dreams playing out all around them. An enchanted, mysterious place that feeds our own world – as without dreams, without a place where our imaginations and minds can be nourished, what kind of humans would we be?
But Annwn is a place as full of dangers as it is wonders: it is a place where dreams can kill you. Annwn and its Dreamers are protected by an ancient order known as the Knights – and when Fern’s hated twin Ollie is chosen to join their ranks, Fern will have to do whatever she can to prove she is one of them too.
A Gathering Midnight
In a city that sleeps, the darkness is gathering …
For Londoner Fern King, Annwn is her second home – the dream mirror of London, the city she loves. An astonishing world, a world where Dreamers walk in their slumber, their dreams playing out all around them. And Fern, along with her twin brother Ollie, is now a Knight, a trusted guardian and protector of those Dreamers – and every night is spent in Annwn, fulfilling that previously only-imagined destiny to guard those who sleep.
But Annwn, this dark and golden city, is a fragile place. There are those who seek to control and to ruin it – mistrust and secrets are rife, and as the delicate symbiotic balance between Annwn and our own world begins to topple, rips begin to appear between the fabric of the worlds. And Fern and Ollie will have to do all in their power to protect this place that has become so precious to them …
A Midnight Dark and Golden
In a darkening city of dreams, can the light return?
For Londoner Fern King, Annwn is her second home – the dream mirror of London, the city she loves. An astonishing world, a world where Dreamers walk in their slumber, their dreams playing out all around them. And Fern, along with her twin brother Ollie, is a Knight, a trusted guardian and protector of those Dreamers – and every night is spent in Annwn, fulfilling that previously only-imagined destiny to guard those who sleep.
But Fern is struggling since the loss of her extraordinary powers – and her nemesis Medraut, who seeks to control and to ruin Annwn is gaining ever more control. Annwn is a dangerous place to be for the Knights, with Dreamers recruited to be Medraut’s personal army, the Knights’ stronghold Tintagel starting to crumble and the last of the Fay slowly being lost.
Fern, and the Knights’, only hope is to retrieve Excalibur, and find the Grail – but will Fern find herself equal to this, and can she save the world she loves and see hope, imagination and wonder restored to Annwn?
Six Wild Crowns
A feminist fantasy retelling of the six wives of Henry VIII.
The king has been appointed by god to marry six queens. Those six queens are all that stand between the kingdom of Elben and ruin. Or so we have been told.
Each queen vies for attention. Clever, ambitious Boleyn is determined to be Henry’s favourite. And if she must incite a war to win Henry over? So be it.
Seymour acts as spy and assassin in a court teeming with dragons, backstabbing courtiers and strange magic. But when she and Boleyn become the unlikeliest of things – allies – the balance of power begins to shift. Together they will discover an ancient, rotting magic at Elben’s heart. A magic that their king will do anything to protect.