Review Policy |

I am currently accepting books for review. Please send emails about book reviews to tempestbooksblog@gmail.com.

Accepting Books

I accept ARCs, finished copies, ebooks, and audiobooks. I will not review a book that is part of a series, but not the first one in the series, unless I have already read the accompanying books (check my Goodreads “read” shelf).

I will review self-published and/or indie books.

Review requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis, depending on my own personal interest and time available. I maintain the right to refuse a review copy at any time.

Preferred Genres

I prefer to accept fiction books in the following categories/genres:

Young Adult
New Adult
Historical Fiction
Dystopia
Thriller
Humor
“Book club” books

I will sometimes accept books that are:

Paranormal
Memoirs
Fantasy
Science Fiction
Fairytale Retellings
Mystery

I will not accept books that are:

History
Nonfiction
Contemporary adult romance
Poetry
Short stories
Novellas
Christian

My Book Reviews

I will read and review every single book that I receive. This does mean that I have necessarily 100% finished the book, although I can guarantee that I will finish at least 100 pages (or about 20-30%).

If I do not finish a book, it is because I did not like it, did not want to continue, and did not think that further reading would improve my opinion of it. I will make it clear that I did not finish the book in my review. I will review only what I had been able to read. In some circumstances, I won’t publish a review of a book I did not finish on my blog (if I don’t feel like it’s “worth it,” or don’t have anything constructive to say), but I will always publish at least something on Goodreads and give it a star rating (books that I did not finish will get 1-2 stars).

If I do have to post a not-so-positive review about a book, I try to be polite and respectful. I do not bash books or authors, but I will be completely honest about my feelings on the book and explain why I personally did not like it.

On this blog, Goodreads, and Amazon, my book reviews are accompanied by a star rating. I also occasionally use half-stars (i.e. “3.5 stars”) if I feel that it is necessary. I cannot choose half-star ratings on Goodreads or Amazon, so I will either round up or down depending on what I feel fits the book best, and state in the review if I have rated it using a half star.

Book reviews will be posted on this blog, Amazon, and Goodreads, as well as promoted through my Twitter and Facebook accounts. Occasionally I will slightly modify reviews depending on the platform. For example, I sometimes will use curse words in a review (whether that be because I am excited, upset, or quoting the book) but you are not aloud to use curse words in an Amazon review, so I will either omit those words or use stars (i.e. f***).

Depending on the platform, reviews may also contain images. On this blog, I always post the cover image of the book and occasionally use supplemental images that I feel fit the storyline (see my review of Escaping Reality by Lisa Renee Jones to see what I mean).

Please let me know if there is a certain date you would like the review posted on or around.

Please allow me between 1-4 months between receiving a book and writing a review for it. Check my ARC spreadsheet to get an idea of what my ARC schedule is like. Total disclosure — I have a lot of unread ARCs, which is something that I’m currently trying to work on.

Star Rating System

Five Stars = I loved this book. I would recommend it to basically everybody and may even want to re-read it. This book made me think and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since I put it down. This book was a page-turner and had me staying up late to finish it. I felt that it was written very well and didn’t contain too many (if any) grammatical/punctuation errors. This book will most likely make my “favorites” shelf on Goodreads.
Four Stars = This book was really good! It wasn’t quite good enough to be an all-time favorite, but I loved most things about it. There were probably one or two small issues that I had with it.
Three Stars = This book was ok. I liked it, but there were some problems that I couldn’t get past.
Two Stars = Eh. I didn’t really like this book. There were two many things wrong with it that negatively affected my enjoyment.
One Star = I completely disliked this book and probably did not finish it.