Sunday Summary – 5th October 2025

Happy Sunday friends! I hope you’ve had a lovely week, however you’ve spent it?! It’s been a busy week here. Quarter end is a busy period for me at work, but I’ve also had a good deal of content to share this week. Take a look at my Sunday Summary to see what the latest is!

On Patreon and here on the blog, I shared two free posts this week, both being reviews. The first of these was my review of the graphic novel Gran Familia. I’ll link to that post as usual so if you haven’t taken a look at that post yet, he is and easy place to go and find it. The second post I shared across Patreon and the blog earlier this week what’s my review of Shield of Mercia by M.J. Porter. I shared my review as part of the ongoing blog tour organised by Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources. This is the eighth book in her Eagle of Mercia Chronicles, and I had a great time reading this latest instalment. Again, if you get to take a look at that post, above is a handy link for you to do so. 

One exclusive post I published on patriarch this week was my monthly wrap-up post for September. In this post, I share the books I read throughout the previous month and give you a sneak preview of my thoughts on those. Typically, this gets posted on my blog.

This will be posted on my blog next week, but I made it available to potential future subscribers first. If you want to be the 1st to see this post in future, you can subscribe to me there to hear my latest updates before anyone else!

 

Books Read

 

Among the Burning Flowers 

Listening progress with Among the Burning Flowers has been on the light side this week. There isn’t a particular reason for this in terms of the book. On a practical level, I needed to listen to the radio on Friday whilst commuting home for weather updates. We had our first storm of the season with trees down, localised flooding and road closures. Thankfully, nothing significant and got home at the usual time. 

I’ve listened to about 45minutes of the book this week. As I say, not a lot. However, there isn’t much left of the book either so I imagine I’ll share completion in next week’s Sunday Summary. 

 

Shield of Mercia

My reading priority this week was Shield of Mercia by M. J. Porter. As you know by now, I shared my review of this book yesterday as part of the ongoing blog tour. It was fun to take part and I hope M. J. Porter has great success with this latest publication. I really enjoyed seeing where events of the series took Icel next. He’s one of my favourite historical fiction characters from this time period because he is unique, likeable, and always gets stuck into the action! 

I could have done with starting this book sooner than I did as I did have to make a last minute push to finish it. However, that was hardly a drag as I really enjoyed the action, wider scope of travel compared to its predecessor and the political scheming amongst Saxons. 

Obviously, I’m not going to go too much into depth with my thoughts here as I have a dedicated post for that. 

 

HR Disrupted 

In last week’s Sunday Summary, I shared that I’d just started HR Disrupted. With Shield of Mercia suitably prioritised and now read, I went back to this non-fiction loan I have on the go. 

In the last few days, I’ve read the first 40% of the book. It’s an interesting read so far and I definitely agree with a lot of Lucy’s views. Classic HR practices don’t work and it would be interesting to see some practices change. Let’s just see if I can convince some changes to happen in my place! I’ll have to read the rest of the book first, so stay tuned and I can tell you more next week! 

 

Books Discovered

Anyone would be thinking I’m on a book buying ban the way things are going right now. Again, there’s nothing new on the reading list this week and I have zero complaints about this 😅

 

Coming Up… 

Patreon 

The first post I’m drafting and publishing for my exclusive subscribers next week is my monthly TBR for October. I have great books and reading plans lined up for this month. My only hope is that my reading success and momentum from September carries forward. It would be amazing to have another super-productive reading month! This is due to go live tomorrow. If you want to be the first to know what I’m reading, as well as find out how to take part in my book club read, subscribe and check out that post! 

Mid-week, I’m in the mood to share a more personal post. Rather than a focus on books, I want to share a bit more about why I’ve set up my Patreon, what I hope to offer on it and help a new set of potential subscribers get to know me a little better. I’ve published a couple of reviews last week, so this feels like a good balance. 

In the spirit of offering subscribers some exclusive content, I’m going to launch details of a reading challenge I’ll be taking part in very soon! I hope you can check this out. Maybe you want to take part as well? 

I write my own, more informal version of a Sunday Summary on Patreon as well. Again, it’s more personal and covers more than just the books I’ve read and featured etc.

 

Blog 

My first post of this week is the monthly wrap-up I initially published on Patreon. If you’re keen to see how reading progress came along last month, you’re in for a treat. I picked up no less than ten books over the course of the month. For the first time in a while, I ended the month on par with my reading goal for the year, if not a little ahead of schedule! Let’s hope October is just as successful! 

My Patreon subscribers are only going to see my monthly TBR a few days ahead of you all. However, with time ticking on with the month I feel bad leaving it too late to let you know my reading plans. So, this will go live on Thursday next week. 

On Friday this week, I intended to share a Shelf Control post but that didn’t make it due to finishing touches on my Shield of Mercia post. That’ll come this week instead; apologies for the delay! 

Finally, I’ll be back this time next week with another Sunday Summary recap of what reading progress has looked like! Hopefully I can share both my current reads are done, and let you know what else is coming up! 

Thank you all for sticking with me! I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Sunday Summary post. 

What are you currently reading? 

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