Review Policy

I read fantasy and science fiction almost exclusively, and occasionally horror with supernatural elements. I do not accept review requests for anything else.

I’ve made a quick list to help you decide quickly whether your book and I might get along.

Absolutely Not = absolutely not, hard no, will not read under any circumstances. At best, I will ignore your message; at worst, you will get a very rude email in response if your book has any of these things.

Mandatory = must haves. I will ignore review requests that don’t have any of my mandatory features. (If it’s not obvious from the book’s description that it has these features, tell me about them in your message!)

Pros = preferred. The more of these you have, the more likely I am to be interested.

Cons = things I generally don’t enjoy, but surprises happen/things I’ll put up with if the book has enough good things going for it

Case By Case = tell me if your book has these in them, and I’ll consider it case by case.

Absolutely Not

  • Anything that utilises or utilised genAI in any way. THAT INCLUDES YOUR COVER ART!
  • I’m incredibly serious about the no-genAI thing. Did you use genAI for ‘brainstorming’ or ‘research’? If I check your socials, will I see promo ‘art’ for the book made with genAI? Does one of your other books, not the one you’re contacting me about, have a genAI cover? All of that counts, any of it means I’m not interested in working with you, ever. Take your slop-shit and fuck off.
  • Paranormal Romance
  • Grimdark
  • Military SFF
  • LitRPG
  • Queerphobic secondary-world/far future settings
  • Misogynistic far future settings
  • Christian fiction

Mandatory

  • SFF. Your book must be Fantasy or Sci Fi or Science Fantasy. Horror is only acceptable if it contains fantasy/supernatural elements.
  • Prose. I don’t read graphic novels or comics, and I don’t review poetry.
  • Diversity. Your main cast must include characters who are queer (including the ace spectrum) or BIPOC/belonging to a racial or ethnic minority or Jewish or neurodivergent or disabled (including mental illnesses/disabilities and chronic illness) or, at absolute minimum, cis women – preferably some combination thereof. If your book has an all-white, all-ablebodied, all-neurotypical, all-cishet male cast, I’m not interested
  • Professional-level formatting. If your e-book is full of formatting errors, I can’t focus on the story. Spelling errors etc in early review copies are fine, but they need to be formatted properly.

Pros

  • Past-tense third-person PoV
  • Detailed worldbuilding
  • Secondary-world setting
  • Secondary-world setting not inspired by Medieval Europe
  • Secondary-world setting not inspired by any real-world place/culture
  • Weird worldbuilding – mushroom cities, worlds without humans or suns, warped reality, etc
  • Narratives/characters that treat as normal supernatural/sci fi things the reader definitely finds weird
  • Lyrical/beautiful/descriptive prose
  • Trans or nonbinary protagonists
  • Autistic or ADHDer protagonists
  • Disabled/chronically ill protagonists
  • Dragons
  • Unicorns
  • Faeries/elves etc that are genuinely alien/otherworldly/terrifying
  • ‘Biblically accurate’ angels
  • Eldritch/cosmic horrors
  • Aliens or other non-humans that FEEL alien – Cherryh’s atevi, Tchaikovsky’s spiders, Leckie’s Presger Translators, Novik’s dragons, Hambly’s vampires, etc
  • Soft magic systems
  • Beautiful magic
  • Gross magic – eg necromancy that leans into the ick
  • Unusual magic/superpowers (including healing)
  • Found-family
  • Strong friendships
  • Not-patriarchies
  • Queernorm settings
  • Polyamory/group marriage, especially if normalised in the worldbuilding
  • Magic mixed with tech
  • Urban Fantasy where magic is integrated into normal life
  • Horror that treats the monstrous/terrifying as beautiful, or uses beautiful prose to describe horrors
  • Gender-weirdness – more than 2 genders and/or sexes, invented ways of assigning gender, alien gender concepts, etc
  • Hopepunk
  • Unconventional approaches to structure/narration
  • Invented religions (that are not Abrahamic lookalikes)
  • Economics
  • Natural history (especially magical/fictional beasties or plants)
  • Morally grey characters
  • Villainous main characters
  • Protagonists hyper-competent in their area of expertise (including the domestic sphere)
  • Reimagining/reinterpretations of mythology/religion (excluding Greek myths)
  • Queer wrath
  • Women’s wrongs
  • Stories infused with your or your protagonist’s Special Interests/passionate interests, no matter how niche or if it’s fictional. Is your story about linguistics, or stamp-collecting, or your protagonist’s thesis? Were you inspired by a piece of historical trivia, or a natural history fact? Did you go down all the rabbit holes while researching for your story, and did you put that on the page? Is your protagonist’s passionate about their hobby or career, and is that a big part of your story? Then gimme!

Cons

  • First person PoV
  • Hard magic systems
  • Greek gods
  • Medieval Europe-esque setting
  • Misogynistic secondary-world settings
  • YA
  • Coming Out stories
  • Ghosts
  • Heists
  • Fated mates
  • Cosy Fantasy that has no tension (see here)
  • Magic based on/around the classical elements
  • Time travel

Case By Case

  • Sexual violence. If it’s not a huge part of the story, and especially if it’s not graphic, I can sometimes get past this.
  • Graphic gore.
  • Violence towards animals. Very minor/background/non-explicit examples might be okay.

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For disability reasons, if your book isn’t available in ePUB, MOBI or AZW3 formats, then I must decline. I am equally happy to read traditionally-published books, self-published books, and books from small or indie presses.

Long, big books are marvellous; please don’t hesitate to send me your doorstoppers! Length will never put me off. Novellas may consider themselves welcome, but I do prefer longer works.

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If you want to contact me about potentially reviewing your book, or interviews/promos/etc, please email me at siavahda@everybookadoorway.com. Chronic health issues may mean I’m slow to respond.

Review requests should include your book’s genre, blurb/description/’back of the book’, how it’s diverse, and which, if any, of my Pros/Cons/Case By Cases it contains. I will not respond to review requests that don’t give me this info.