Sunday Salon: Historical Fiction Reading Challenge March statistics

 

Last year I started sharing statistics each month for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, and my plan is to continue to do this again this year. I find it interesting to see what are the books that people are reading and reviewing! This month I have been around and visited most of the reviews and added several books to my TBR list.

In terms of the books, it was another really good month for reviews with 88 reviews linked up for the challenge, shared by 25 participants. This is 12 more than for the same month last year. There were 85 individual titles reviewed, written by 83 different authors. There were 8 reviewers who reviewed 5 or more books each. Thank you to everyone who shared their links whether it be 7 or just 1.

Let's move onto the books. There were three books that were reviewed twice during March.

 

The first is Goodnight from Paris by Jane Healey which was enthusiastically reviewed by Davida at The Chocolate Lady's Book Review and by Susan at Reading World

The next book to be reviewed twice is Strangers in the Night by Heather Webb which was also reviewed by Davida as well as at Laura's Reviews. This book is the story of Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner's tempestuous relationship.

The third book to be reviewed twice was The Book Spy by Alan Hlad. I have requested this one from my library based on the reviews I read at Laura's Reviews and also Becky's Reviews. WWII librarians who are spies sound like my kind of read!

There are two authors who both had two books reviewed being Lauraine Snelling and Trish MacEnulty. Barbara from Stray Thoughts reviewed 2 books which actually comprise 5 novellas, all set in North Dakota in the early 1900s and featuring Norwegian immigrants. The first collection comprised 3 novellas called Dakota Dream, Dakota Dream and Dakota Dusk. The second collection is the final 2 novellas called Dakota December and Dakota Destiny.

Yvonne from A Darn Good Read reviewed two books by Trish MacEnulty which are the first two books in the Delafield and Malloy Investigations historical mystery series. The first book is The Whispering Women and the second is The Burning Bride.

Recently the shortlist for the Sir Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction for 2023 was announced, so I thought I would share the books from the longlist which have been reviewed for the challenge so far. I have noted the books which have made the shortlist

The Romantic by Willian Boyd

These Days by Lucy Caldwell (Shorlisted)

My Name is Yip by Paddy Crewe

The Geometer Lobachevsky by Adrian Duncan (Shortlisted)

Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris (Shortlisted)

The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson Joseph

The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry (Shortlisted)

The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley by Sean Lusk

The Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane (Shortlisted)

Ancestry by Simon Mower (Shortlisted)

I Am Not Your Eve by Devika Ponnanbalam (Shortlisted)
The Settlement by Jock Serong

Cathy from What Cathy Read Next has read several of the listed books including The Romantic, I am Not Your Eve and The Settlement.

Is anyone else planning to read any of short or longlisted books for the Prize?

It's not too late to join the 2023 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. The sign up post is here, and you can find the March linky to add your reviews here.

I am also sharing this post with Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.