Historical Fiction Reading Challenge Statistics: December and the whole of 2025!

 

Every month I share some of the statistics related to the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. I find it interesting to see what are the books that people are reading and reviewing. I try very hard to visit all the links, and often end up adding books to my own TBR pile as a result!

This month, I will be sharing the statistics for both December and for the whole of 2025!

In terms of the books read in December, there were 44 reviews linked up for the challenge, shared by 15 participants. There were 43 individual titles reviewed, written by 41 different authors, There were 4 reviewers who reviewed 5 or more books each. Thank you to everyone who shared their links whether it be 8 or just 1.

So which book was reviewed more than once for the challenge?

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones was reviewed twice. It is billed as both horror and historical fiction. We don't often see horror on our list. It was reviewed by Bree at All the Books You Can Read and by Laura at Laura's Reviews who said it was "one of the best books I’ve read this year or ever".

Their were two authors who were reviewed twice this month but with different titles. Shellie from Shellie Loves Books shared two Agatha Christie reviews with us. The first was The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding which I want to read now just because of the title! The second was The Sittaford Mystery. 

Now, let's move onto the stats for the whole of 2025.

There were 709 reviews linked up for the challenge throughout the year, shared by 35 participants. There were 613 individual titles reviewed, written by 41 different authors, There were 4 reviewers who shared links for 40 or more books each. Our top contributor was Laura from Laura's Reviews who contributed an amazing 96 reviews! Thank you to everyone who shared their links whether it be 96 or just 1.

This compares to 665 reviews in 2024, 846 reviews in 2023, 841 reviews in 2022 and 775 reviews during 2021

So which books were reviewed the most during 2025? Drumroll please!

There were two books that were reviewed four times each.

The Predicament is the second book in the Gabriel Dax mystery series and it was reviewed by Cathy at What Cathy Read Next, Helen at She Reads Novels, Margaret at Books Please and by Davida at The Chocolate Lady's Book Review Blog. After reading these reviews I picked this book up, although I do need to read the first book in the series first. 

The Story She Left Behind by Patti Callahan Henry was reviewed by Jenia at Story for Dessert, Barbara at Stray Thoughts, Laura at Laura's Reviews and by Laura at Reading Books Again.

There were a further 9 books that were reviewed three times which were

Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon

The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn

The Elopement by Gill Hornby

The House of Seymour by Joanna Hickson

The King's Messenger by Susanna Kearsley

The Lost Passenger by Frances Quinn

The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue

The Versailles Formula by Nancy Bilyeau

There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak

Here's a breakdown of review by title

4 reviews - 2

3 reviews - 9

2 reviews - 52

1 review - 570

If we look at the authors who were reviewed multiple times, then perennial favourite Agatha Christie is up there with 20 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. However, the other author with 20 reviews was Laurie R King, thanks wholly to Kim on Goodreads who worked her way through the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series this year.

Other honourable mentions go to Irina Shapiro who had 7 stories reviewed as did Kate Quinn, although she also contributed to a short story collection so technically could be counted as 8! The late, great Kerry Greenwood also had 6 reviews, all of her Phryne Fisher series. 

Here's a breakdown of review by author numbers

20 reviews - 2

7 reviews - 2

6 reviews - 1

5 reviews - 2

4 reviews - 6

3 reviews - 25

2 reviews - 81

1 review - 375

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

And for the fun stat, there were 58 different books reviewed that had some variation of the words death and murder in the title!

Last year I added a column to my spreadsheet for the times I thought "oh, I would like to read that" when I read someone's review. That happened 42 times! And how many did I actually read - just three. 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 2026 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. If you are interested in joining us, the sign up post is here. We would love to have you join us and see what you are reading!