Showing posts with label Hazel Gaynor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hazel Gaynor. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Most Recent Additions to my Kindle

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader GirlThis week's theme is The Ten Most Recent Additions to My Book Collection (or to your to-read list!)

I started writing this list late last week, which might have been a bit dangerous give how often I tend to 1click books in the middle of the night. Here are the last ten books I have acquired (as at the end of last week). ETA - yep, it would have looked a bit different if I was writing this post on Tuesday!





Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao - Can't remember where I saw this that prompted me to buy it, but it is probably because it is set in Tokyo.

The Last Lifeboat by Hazel Gaynor - I think I added this to my list because I saw that it had been shortlisted for an Irish literature prize.

Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami - I saw this on Emma's blog over at Words and Peace

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett - I have been thinking about getting this for a while and finally bit the bullet.

The Last Love Note by Emma Grey - I first heard of this book last year at Rachael Johns Reader Retreat and have been meaning to get it since then.





Never Want to Sea You Again by Leonie Mack - I really enjoy Leonie Mack's books so when I saw that she was releasing this short story on her Substack I had to get it. It is still available

The Baby Dragon Cafe by Aamna Qureshi - Somehow I ended up on a broadcast channel from the publisher for this book, and in the end I couldn't help but pre-order it.

If You Could See Me Now by Samantha Tonge  - Upcoming blog tour review book. I do like Samantha Tonge's books.

Happily Ever After by Jane Lovering - This is also an upcoming blog tour review book

Where the Birds Call Her Name by Claire van Ryn - This is an Australian author and the book sounds great. I was pleased when it was approved on Netgalley.

Have you read any of these?

Sunday, January 12, 2025

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




Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Top Ten Tuesday: Just Some of the Most Reviewed Books from the 2023 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

 

 

 




 

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is Bookish Goals for 2024. However, don't really have that many goals, other than tryig to review all the historical fiction novels I read, and I am already behind on that goal! I am therefore going rogue and instead sharing some of the books that were reviewed multiple times during the 2023 Historical Fiction Challenge. On the weekend, I revealed  the book that was reviewed most during the challenge (five times) and the three books that were reviewed  four times. You can see those books here along with other statistics.



Today, I will be sharing the five books that were reviewed three times, and then five (out of the 75) books that were reviewed twice.

First off, here are five books that were reviewed three times:








A Marriage of Fortune by Anne O'Brien - It has been an age since I read any historical fiction with a medieval setting.



Strangers in the Night by Heather Webb - This book tells the story of Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner






The Last Lifeboat by Hazel Gaynor - This sounds like a very interesting story


The Orchid Hour by Nancy Bilyeau - Love this cover!





The Romantic by William Boyd - This book was longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction

And here are five books  that were reviewed twice which I have picked for various reason to share today




The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak - I loved, loved,loved this book when I read it a couple of years ago.


The Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane - This is another book that was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize. She is an Australian author, and I feel like she probably goes under the radar a little bit here.






Weyward by Emilia Hart - This was the winner of the Goodreads Choice Awards for Historical Fiction in 2023.


The War Nurses by Anthea Hodgson - I really liked this book when I read it last year.





The Little Wartime Library by Kate Thompson - I keep on being reminded that I really need to read this book!


If you love historical fiction and reading challenges, why not join us. t's not too late to join this year's challenge. All the sign up details are here!

Sunday, July 09, 2023

Sunday Salon: Historical Fiction Reading Challenge - June - and the year so far!

 


Each month I share the statistics for the previous month for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. I always find it interesting to see what are the books that people are reading and reviewing! This month I have haven't had time to visit the reviews that have been shared. I will do better in the coming month. Given that we have just gone past the half way point of the challenge for this year, I thought I would also share the statistics for the year so far as well



First, the statistics for June.

In terms of the books, it was a quieter month in June for reviews with 64 reviews linked up for the challenge, shared by 19 participants. However, this is only 1 less than for the same month last year so maybe June is always a bit quieter. There were 60 individual titles reviewed, written by 55 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. 

Let's move onto the books. There were 4 books that were reviewed twice during June. Interestingly, one of these books was also on our most reviewed list for last month, which is quite unusual. 

The 4 books that were reviewed twice were





The Heiress Bride by Madeline Hunter is the third book in the A Duke's Heiress series. This book was reviewed at Laura's Reviews and also by Susan at Reading World,





The Last Lifeboat by Hazel Gaynor was reviewed at What Cathy Read Next and by Helen at She Reads Novels


 
The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson was also reviewed by both Helen and Cathy.






The final book to mention is Voices of the Dead by Ambrose Parry which was reviewed by Helen and Cathy again.

In addition to these authors, there were 5 authors who had multiple titles reviewed. 

Agatha Christie
Alexis Hall
D E Stevenson
Lydia Travers
Sandra Dallas

So how about for the first 6 months of the year. Well, we have had more than 500 reviews so far which is A-maz-ing! Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far. 

There are books that have been reviewed more than once, but these are the books which have been reviewed more than twice





Homecoming by Kate Morton  (4 reviews)

My Father's House by Joseph O'Connor (4 reviews)





Strangers in the Night by Heather Webb (3 reviews)

The Last Lifeboat by Hazel Gaynor (3 times)


In addition to those mentioned above there are also 15 other authors who have been reviewed more than twice.




Finally, I thought I would mention the winner of the Sir Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction which was announced in June. The winner was These Days by Lucy Caldwell, which was reviewed for the challenge by Helen at She Reads Novels back in March.

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


I am looking forward to seeing what people share during July. 

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

TEMPLATE CREATED BY PRETTYWILDTHINGS