Sunday Salon: Historical Fiction Reading Challenge statistics for December and the whole year!

Every month I share some of the statistics related to the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. I try very hard to visit every post which has been linked (time permitting) and I find it interesting to see what are the books that people are reading and reviewing! I often end up adding a couple of books to my never ending TBR list.

This month I am also sharing the stats for the whole of the 2024 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge!

First, December. 

In terms of the books read in December, there were 58 reviews linked up for the challenge, shared by 19 participants. There were 56 individual titles reviewed, written by 52 different authors. There were 4 reviewers who shared 5 or more reviews this month. Thank you to everyone who shared their links whether it be 12 or just 1.

So which books were reviewed more than once in December? There were two.

The first, somewhat fittingly given the Season, was Christmas with the Queen by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb. This was reviewed by Barbara from Stray Thoughts and Laura from Laura's Reviews. Click on the links to see their thoughts!

The second was Gabriel's Moon by William Boyd which was reviewed by Davida at The Chocolate Lady's Book Reviews and Helen at She Reads Novels. The links take you to their reviews.

I do have to be careful when I do these statistics as this month we had two different books with the title Euphoria, so it did look like there was another one, but there wasn't!

I already shared this in the Facebook group but there were a lot of books with a variation of the word murder in the title this month. Maybe there is every month, but it jumped out at me this month. There were 8 of those titles, plus another one with the word Death!

There were a number of authors where there were reviews shared for more than one of their books.

Barbara from Stray Thoughts shared two novellas from Amanda Dykes, and I have to say that the Tin Can Serenade one sounds really good to me!

Barbara also shared her thoughts on two books by Roseanna M White - An Honorable Deception and Christmas at Sugar Plum Manor. 

Finally, there were two reviews shared for stories written by Charles Dickens. Alexis at Goodreads read La battaglia della vita which is The Battle of Life. I read The Chimes, which is one of Dickens lesser known Christmas stories. And yes, I do read for this challenge, I just don't often get to highlight myself in these posts (;-))

So those were the stats for December. Let's get to the stats for the whole of 2024!

In terms of the books read and reviewed in 2024, there were 665 reviews linked up for the challenge, shared by 34 participants. There were 600 individual titles reviewed, written by 502 different authors. There were 7 reviewers who shared 30 or more reviews this month with our top contributor being Laura from Laura's Reviews who contributed an amazing 101 reviews!. Thank you to everyone who shared their links whether it be 101 or just 2.

This compares to 846 reviews in 2023, 841 reviews in 2022 and 775 reviews during 2021

So which book was reviewed the most during 2024? To be honest, I am not completely surprised given that this book one the Goodreads Choice award for Historical Fiction and has appeared on many best of lists. I will say though, it does seem to be a very divisive book. People either really, really love it, or they really don't!

Drumroll please!

The book with the most reviews during 2024 was The Women by Kristin Hannah

The next highest number of reviews was for The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonsen which was reviewed 4 times.

There were then 8 books that were reviewed three times:

Every Time We Say Goodbye by Natalie Jenner

Gabriel's Moon by William Boyd

James by Percival Everett

The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhorn

The Household by Stacey Halls

The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang

Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein

As I mentioned earlier, it can be a little tricky sometimes with books with the same title. Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein was reviewed 3 times, but there was also another book with the same title as well by C J Barker.

Here's a breakdown of review by author numbers

5 reviews - 1

4 reviews - 1

3 reviews - 8

2 reviews - 84

1 review - 548

If we look at the authors who were reviewed multiple times, then Agatha Christie is the runaway winner with 19 different reviews contributed. I don't think that is a surprise given that quite a few people are doing both this challenge and the Read Christie challenge.

Other honourable mentions go to Roseanna M White who had 6 stories reviewed. Amanda Dykes and Verity Bright both had 5 stories reviewed!

There are a couple of little anomalies here. Kate Quinn writing solo was reviewed 3 times, but she was also reviewed 3 times for her collaboration with Janie Chang! Similarly, Hazel Gaynor and Aimee K Runyan were reviewed both as individuals and for their collaborative novels. There are probably others as well, but those are the ones that stood out to me.

Here's a breakdown of review by author numbers

19 reviews - 1

6 reviews - 1

5 reviews - 2

4 reviews - 6

3 reviews - 27

2 reviews - 56

1 review - 408

And here is the breakdown for the number of reviews for month

Oh, and for the record, there were 42 different books reviewed that had some variation of the words death and murder in the title! I am thinking of adding this into the monthly stats!

This year I added a column for the times I thought "oh, I would like to read that" when I read someone's review. That happened 68 times! And how many did I actually read - just one. Just goes to show that this challenge is bad/good for your TBR pile, depending on your perspective!

So now we look forward to the 2025 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. If you are interested in joining us, the sign up post is here. We would love to see what you are reading!

I am sharing this with Sunday Salon hosted at Readerbuzz