Goodreads Best Fantasy novels of 2020

Goodreads recently announced their Choice Awards for Best Fantasy novels of 2020. In fact, the annual Goodreads Choice Awards lists the best books of the year in many major genres—including fantasy.

These awards are significant because they represent books that are voted on by readers—everyday people like you and me (assuming you are a Goodreads subscriber).

Sub-genres of the Best Fantasy novels

I took a look at the twenty books that readers voted the Best Fantasy novels of 2020. In light of last month’s blog post about fantasy sub-genres, I was curious to know which sub-genres are most popular among Goodreads readers this year.

Most books are categorized under more than one sub-genre. For example, the Goodreads #1 voted Best Fantasy novel of 2020 is House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas. This book is book one in Maas’ new Crescent City series. One of the main sub-genre categories for House of Earth and Blood is the Fantasy sub-genre Paranormal Romance.

I looked at all twenty books voted on as the Best Fantasy novels of 2020 and discovered that they all fit within six main fantasy sub-genres (according to Amazon’s categories).

Five of the twenty books are Contemporary Fantasy

Five of the twenty books are Historical Fantasy

Four of the twenty books are Dark Fantasy

Three of the twenty books are Epic Fantasy

Two of the twenty books are Paranormal Romance

One of the twenty books is Coming of Age

You can check out the full list of the twenty Best Fantasy novels of 2020 here, but I’ve featured the top ten below.

Everyone on our mailing list as of December 31, 2020 will be entered into a draw to win their choice of one of the twenty Goodreads’ Best Fantasy novels of 2020.

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