Every Heart a Doorway
core novella 2016 Wayward Children
Record
| First published | 2016 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novella |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.80 (126,199 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 173 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780765385505 |
| Internal chronology | 1 |
Synopsis
Every Heart a Doorway follows Nancy Whitman as she arrives at Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, a boarding school catering specifically to young people who once traveled through mysterious doors into magical worlds and have struggled ever since to readjust to ordinary life after being sent home. Nancy, who spent her formative years in the quiet, still Halls of the Dead, finds the noisy, overstimulating texture of the everyday world almost unbearable by comparison, and the school offers rare company among others who understand that particular grief. Her uneasy adjustment is interrupted when a series of mysterious deaths begins occurring among the students, forcing Nancy and her new schoolmates to confront a killer within their own ranks.
Where it sits
- Universe: Wayward Children
- Series: Wayward Children core; position 1 of 11 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Seanan McGuire
Awards (verified)
- Nebula Award (Best Novella), 2016: won
- Hugo Award (Best Novella), 2017: won
- Locus Award (Best Novella), 2017: won
- Alex Award (Selection), 2017: won
- British Fantasy Award (Best Novella), 2017: nominated; Nominee, not winner: the 2017 BFA Best Novella went to Victor LaValle's The Ballad of Black Tom (per sfadb.com/British_Fantasy_Awards_2017); Wikipedia's infobox on this book is misleading/incorrect on this point.
- World Fantasy Award (Best Novella), 2017: nominated
Notes
- From the series record (Wayward Children): Core Canon = all 11 published novellas (Tor.com/Tordotcom, 2016-2026), per the collection/short-form-as-Core precedent (this series' primary reading unit has always been the novella, not the novel). Book 12, "A Song of Sugar Sparrows" (planned January 2027), is announced but unpublished as of 2026-08-11 -- isn't counted here yet; watch for its publication.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series Wayward Children: position 1 of 11: next Down Among the Sticks and Bones (2017)
Sources
← Wayward Children dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.