Trend Desk · Romance
Romance this week: dukes, Christmas and four-book launches
About half of the Kindle Romance top 50 is historical romance right now, and several books sit high on the chart with fewer than 100 reviews.
What's on the chart
We read the Kindle Romance top 50 as it stood on Sunday, November 8. One kind of book owns it: historical romance, mostly Regency. By our count, 26 of the 50 are historical romances: dukes, earls, rakes, wallflowers, mail-order brides on the frontier, and one Pride and Prejudice variation. Add the historical fiction that sits beside them (Kate Quinn, Lucinda Riley, Kelly Rimmer's WWII novel) and the past takes up well over half the list.
Christmas has arrived. The Duke Who Forgot Christmas is #7 after three days on the chart. A Holiday by Gaslight is #14 after two. A Christmas house-party Regency and a November rake are in the top 50 too. Holiday romances are already selling in the first week of November.
Low review counts aren't stopping anyone. The Duke Who Forgot Christmas is #7 with 40 reviews. The Infamous Rake of Carlwood is #16 with 48. One new release in a running series is #47 with five reviews. A reader shopping this chart is buying the cover, the trope and the series, not the review count.
Whole series are launching close together. Eloisa James has four books of her Rejected Series in the top 50 (#12, #30, #37 and #47), all on the chart for five days or fewer. Sarah M. Eden has four books of the Lancaster Family series on it, and Misty M. Beller has two from Lords of the Rockies. Readers are taking whole series at once.
Dark fantasy romance is holding on. Liv Zander's Court of Ravens books 1 and 2 are #5 and #20. Both have been on the chart for all 41 days we have data for.
The China watch
On Jinjiang, China's biggest women's fiction site, the all-time score chart is led by modern-day love stories: 12 of the top 20 are tagged present-day romance. Five more are set in an imagined historical world and three in the future, and several are transmigration stories, where the heroine wakes up inside a novel or a game. Fanqie, the largest free-reading platform, told writers on November 2 that romance is holding steady. It also said readers drop books with slow first chapters: fast openings win.
What this means for your next book
- If you write historical romance, put the holiday in the title now. Christmas historicals are already in the top 20 in the first week of November.
- Launch series books close together. Eloisa James has four books of one series on the chart, all of them there for five days or fewer. If book 2 and book 3 are ready, don't hold them for months.
- Don't wait for reviews to promote. Books with under 100 reviews are in the top 20. A clear trope in the title (duke, rake, wallflower, rejected bride) is doing the work.
- Open fast. Chinese platforms see the same thing Western readers do: slow first chapters lose readers.