2020 was a strange year for many of us with a global pandemic keeping most people at home a lot more than usual, not me. I’m a supermarket worker so I was even busier than usual. it will be interesting to see how that affected our reading statistics, specifically of the crime genre.
Let’s start with a little comparison. In 2019 we saw 419 reviews of 180 books by 110 authors, in 2020 that was up to 481 reviews of 205 books by 146 authors and that’s some pretty impressive growth. I know that I did a lot more reading in 2020 than I have been of late but I certainly didn’t do very much reviewing, and i’m not looking like catching up any time soon unfortunately.
481 reviews is an amazing number, but also a little daunting to attack as a wrap-up, so let’s look at some Top Tens.
Top Ten Authors reviewed in 2020
- Sulari Gentill – 19 entries – 10 titles
- Dervla McTiernan – 18 entries – 3 titles
- Jane Harper – 14 entries
- Kayte Nunn – 13 entries
- Fleur McDonald – 12 entries – 3 titles
- Leah Swann and Sarah Thornton each with 11 entries
- Kate Mildenhall – 10 entries
- Kirsten Alexander, Sonya Bates, D.K. Hood (9 titles) and Sandi Wallace (4 titles) each with 9 entries
- Anne Downes, Phillipa Nefri Clark (5 titles) and Emma Viskic (3 titles) each with 8 entries
- Caroline Beecham, Anne Buist, B.M. Carroll, Christine Lee, Kim Kelly, Karina Kilmore, Kirsty Manning and Petronella McGovern (3 titles) each with 7 entries
The Top Ten Featured Titles in 2020
13 Reviews
The Silk House – Kaye Nunn
The Good Turn – Dervla McTiernan
12 Reviews
The Survivors – Jane Harper
11 Reviews
Sheerwater – Leah Swann
10 Reviews
The Mother Fault – Kate Mildenhall
9 Reviews
Inheritance Of Secrets – Sonya Bates
Riptides – Kirsten Alexander
The End of Cuthbert Close – Cassie Hamer
The Safe Place – Anna Downes
8 Reviews
White Throat – Sarah Thornton
We couldn’t run the Australian Women Writer’s Challenge without our amazing reviewers so let’s take a look at the reviewers who featured the most prolifically in 2020.
- Brenda posted 49 reviews on Goodreads
- Cloggie Downunder posted 44 reviews on Goodreads
- Carolyn Scott posted 34 reviews on Goodreads
- Amanda @ Mrs B’s Book Reviews posted 34 times, 3 interviews and 31 reviews
- Jennifer Cameron-Smith posted 33 reviews on Goodreads
- Shelleyrae @ Book’d Out posted 31 reviews
- Ashleigh Meikle – The Book Muse posted 28 reviews
- Sharon Hill posted 20 reviews on Goodreads
- Cass Moriarty posted 19 reviews on Goodreads
- Theresa Smith Writes also published 19 posts, 3 being interviews
Let’s extend a huge thanks to our top reviewers for their support of Australian Women Writer’s. A few of our top 10 are also editors of the AWW Challenge with genres of their own to focus on so well done to them.
I can’t wait to see what 2021 has in store for us. For now, I’m going to sign off and see what else I can tick off the list today.
Happy Reading, we would love to hear what you loved in 2020 in the comments below.
2020 was a good year for crime releases! I’ll give it that!
At least it had one think going for it I guess
What a terrific yearly wrap up. Loved seeing the Top 10s and congrats to each of the top reviewers listed, you inspire us all 🙂