Reviewing Policy

I'm afraid that, once again, my review lists have grown too long and so I am not currently taking any more books for review. I shall open the lists again as soon as I can.

For information, below is my reviewing policy:

1. I review m/m romance stories. This means the story has to have as its central theme a romantic relationship between two (or more) gay men.  The erotic content of the story doesn't matter to me either way. I like stories with a lot of sex or no sex. I do insist that a story has either a HEA, HFN or an ending which lends itself to a hopeful conclusion. I do not like stories where one of the main romantic characters dies tragically at the end. It leaves me feeling an unhappy bunny and I am unlikely to give it a good review, unless I know well in advance it's going to happen and I can prepare myself.

2. I will accept books with bisexual or trans characters, although personal preference means that I'm not so keen on lots of page time devoted to on-page m/f sex. A bit is fine, as is m/f sex between secondary characters. I'm afraid f/f is not really my thing. I tried reading it, it was OK, but I'm not really interested in reviewing it. I do not like to read m/f/m or m/m/f ménage books but I'm quite happy to read ménage books which are m/m/m (or more m's!) only.

3. If your book is under 20,000 words, then I will ask whether I can review it at my other blog Brief Encounters Reviews. That blog is a specialist short story review site which I run with Tam and most of my short story reading is reviewed there. If you would rather I reviewed at Well Read, then I can only offer up a short review of about 500 words for a book under 20,000 words, rather than the longer reviews I write for the full length novels or longer novellas.

4. I may refuse to review your book if I feel that it is not in keeping with the ethos of my blog or not the sort of book I, or my readers, would be interested in reading.  This will be based on my personal opinion of the book's blurb and any additional information I may seek from the publisher/author.

5.  I write reviews for readers, not for authors or publishers.  Therefore all books will be treated the same:

My promise to you:
I will read the book from cover to cover.
I will carefully consider my opinion of the book.
I will write a balanced review giving my opinion on what did and didn't work for me.
I will offer up a grade based on my grading system (see here).

This will mean that your book may get a bad review or grade from me.  I do not write reviews so that authors can use them as publicity, I write them so readers make an informed decision about where to spend their money.  If you do not want to risk getting a bad review then I would suggest that you do not send your book to me.

6. I am a lone reviewer with reviewing commitments to other review sites, and therefore it may take me some time (often up to a month or more) before I can read your book or review it.  I apologise for this and will always give you a general indication of how long it will be until your book can be reviewed.


If your book fits with my blog then I'll be happy to take your book for consideration.  Please send an email with some sort of greeting (I get narked off at emails from people who don't bother to say hello and ask nicely. I'm a person with a hobby, not a business), the name of your book, blurb and publisher link, to the email in the 'About Me' link.  If possible, I prefer epub format, but I can accept pdf too.  At a push I will take mobi/prc but I do not own a Kindle so this makes it more awkward because I have to read it on my iPad which isn't quite so small and portable as my Sony Reader.

If you need any clarification on this policy, please do not hesitate to contact me via the 'About Me' button on my blog.