Sunday Summary – 6th August 2023
Happy Sunday everybody and welcome back to my weekly Sunday Summary update post. As always, I hope you’ve had a great week, wherever you are and whatever you are doing!
This week has been a very productive one when it comes to reading progress and on my blog. The end of the month/beginning of a new month are always busy for me. Both my Monthly Wrap-Up post for July and my Monthly TBR for August were shared this week. They are both chunky blog posts in themselves – to prepare and publish.
Not only that, but I also shared a blog tour review on Friday for Brothers of the Sword by Peter Gibbons. If you haven’t already checked out that post, and are a fan of historical fiction novels such as Bernard Cornwell’s The Last Kingdom, then Brothers of the Sword should be right up your alley!
Books Read
Brothers of the Sword
As I mentioned in last week’s Sunday Summary post, my priority this week was to finish Brothers of the Sword by Peter Gibbons. As I’ve already mentioned above, I took part in the blog tour for this book on Friday. With just a handful of days left until that post, finishing Brothers of the Sword was a must.
I went on to enjoy this book as much as I thought I would! This historical fiction novel, along with the rest of the series, is full of action. There is plenty going on at any given time in order to keep our interest. Not only that, but this isn’t done to the detriment of character development or world-building. Both of these elements are also very much present and make for a well rounded tale. I’ve already shared my thoughts in full in that blog tour post. Rather than giving you a full write up here, I’ll leave the link to that post.
The City of a Thousand Faces
Next, I picked up the first book of my August TBR, The City of a Thousand Faces by Walker Dryden. This particular book was drawn out of my TBR Jar on my bookshelf. It has been on my reading list for some time. I’m pleased to say that not only did I start the book this week, but I made my way through all 530 pages of it!
The City of a Thousand Faces ended up being a mixed read. Whilst I enjoyed the setting and political machinations between several characters throughout, there were elements that weren’t so well executed. My main gripe is around characterisation.
The book is told across 100 chapters from a variety of perspectives. Most of these are fine; I actually enjoyed the different perspectives and the insight they gave into a lot of the character relationships. However, there were a few incidences of getting characters mixed up with each other. Daniel and Wolf, for example, had very similar narrative voices and circumstances. I’ve also finished the book being not entirely sure about who the antagonist in the story even was, which is a bit disappointing.
Overall, I the book received a three star rating.
Spike: The Virus vs The People
The last book I picked up and made progress with this week was Spike: The Virus vs The People. In my aim to pick up more non-fiction books this year, I have no less than three on my August TBR. The first of those I decided to pick up is, as the title would indicate, about the recent pandemic. It is strange to think that the pandemic kicked off over three years ago now. In some senses, it seems like ages ago, and in others, like yesterday.
As of this Sunday Summary update post, I have made 29% progress through the book. I made the majority of that reading progress just this morning. It’s compulsive reading! Whilst I’m sure there are plenty who wouldn’t feel comfortable reading about the pandemic just now, I am really interested in digging into the detail. It’s weird to think that I have lived through an event that will go down in history and will be talked about for years to come. Not only that, but I’m curious to find out some of the insights the author can give that wasn’t public knowledge at the time events were unfolding.
Given how quickly I’ve been able to make the reading progress I have, I expect I will fly through the rest of this book.
Books Discovered
When reading around the book blogosphere earlier today, I found a First Lines Friday post with a featured book that caught my eye. I hadn’t noted down where I saw that post, but fortunately I was able to find it again. The post was originally shared over on Read to Ramble.
I enjoyed the introduction, and the synopsis appealed to me as well. I take part in the First Lines Friday feature on a regular basis myself, so it’s good to see that these posts do inspire books to be added to the reading list. At least, it works for me!
Coming Up…
Next week, I will be returning to my usual three post schedule. Whilst I can manage a full post week now and then, it’s quite a lot to juggle!
The first post I will be sharing with you next week goes live on Tuesday. It’s been a while since I shared a Top Ten Tuesday post, and I’m excited for this week’s topic. This week’s theme is to share my top 10 books that I want to pick up as a result of the Top Ten Tuesday Series. The ‘why’ is that my discretion, I just have to share my top ten. I’ll obviously detail each ‘why’ in that post!
This week’s Friday feature will see the return of a Shelf Control post. If you are unfamiliar with this series, I take a look at my reading list and feature one that’s coming up. I’ll share the details of that book and why I’m looking forward to picking it up. For this week’s post, I will be featuring a book that revolves around one of my favourite periods of history, the Tudors. This will also be a new author for me to explore, but one who is well known and esteemed in the genre.
Last, but certainly not least, I will be back with another Sunday Summary update at the same time next week. I expect to have a lot more reading progress to share with you, as I seem to be on a good run at the moment.
That’s all from me for today’s Sunday Summary update. What have you been reading this week? Are there any books that have caught your eye?
