Every Heart a Doorway cover art

Every Heart a Doorway

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Every Heart a Doorway

By: Seanan McGuire
Narrated by: Cynthia Hopkins
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £7.99

Buy Now for £7.99

Only £0.99 a month for the first 3 months. Pay £0.99 for the first 3 months, and £8.99/month thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Start my membership

About this listen

Winner of the Hugo Award, Hugo Award for Best Series, Alex Award, Locus Award, and Nebula Award
Nominated for the World Fantasy Award, British Fantasy Award, and Tiptree Honor List

"A mini-masterpiece of portal fantasy — a jewel of a book that deserves to be shelved with Lewis Carroll's and C. S. Lewis' classics" —NPR

New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire presents a fresh take on the portal fantasy genre that blends Alice in Wonderland, The Magicians, and The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children
No Solicitations
No Visitors
No Quests

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Nancy tumbled once, but now she's back. The things she's experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West's care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

But Nancy's arrival marks a change at the Home. There's a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it's up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of things.

No matter the cost.

The Wayward Children Series
Book 1: Every Heart a Doorway
Book 2: Down Among the Sticks and Bones
Book 3: Beneath the Sugar Sky
Book 4: In an Absent Dream

 Classics Dark Fantasy Fantasy Fiction LGBTQIA+ Creators Magic Neurodiversity Scary Heartfelt Middle Game

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Kiss Me Deadly cover art
All Systems Red (Dramatized Adaptation) cover art
A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking cover art
Indexing cover art
The Long List Anthology cover art
A Psalm for the Wild-Built cover art
Middlegame cover art
Rosemary and Rue cover art
This Poison Heart cover art
Ace cover art
Assistant to the Villain cover art
Blood Sisters cover art
The Alchemist cover art
A Darker Shade of Magic cover art
Demon in the Wood cover art
The Little Prince cover art

Critic reviews

"[Cynthia] Hopkins has a calm gravitas that gives the story the feel of a classic children’s story, a grand tale you should already know but for some reason you haven’t encountered yet. This short work is lovely and mournful, perfect for anyone who just can’t stop thinking about what happens after the soi-disant ‘'happy ending.’’'" -Locus
All stars
Most relevant
Story:

I loved this so much, I just couldn’t put it down until it was done. It’s magical, charming and perfectly weird, but also very dark and has a surprising amount of grisly bits. It’s about loss and difference and identity and also a little bit about hope, about finding a new family, a new home and new purpose when yours rejects you. And it can also be read as a metaphor for growing up and dealing with parents or a world that tries to make you ‘fit’ in ways that aren’t you.

It’s also very clever in its use of certain fantasy tropes, with a lot to say about portal fantasies and the characters you tend to find in them. I’ve read stories before that feel like they are in conversation with the fantasy genre, but this one is particularly successful at also being an utterly compelling story in its own right, not to mention including a great, diverse set of characters that I had a genuine emotional connection with. Just brilliant.

Narrator:

Amazing! The narrator handles this story and the characters in it so well, it's a delight to listen to.

Beautiful and heart-breaking

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
What a beautiful and whimsical story. This audiobook was excellent. I thoroughly was swept away by it.

Beautiful!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
such a wonderfully gothic and mysterious story, immediately want to read the next in the series!

beautiful and fantastical

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It’s not bad I suppose. It’s not great. It’s a book. It’s readable. I listened to the whole thing. It just didn’t touch me. At all. But who knows, maybe you’re close enough to the characters to find something for yourself here.

Not bad?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I actually liked this book! Though didn't expect it would be that "dark"...the narrator was Brillient! For me it was an easy listen - though would log liked it to of been a longer story!

Not expected story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews