It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for another Six Degrees of Separation, hosted by Kate of Books are my Favourite and Best. The idea is that Kate chooses a book to use as a starting point and then we have to link it to six other books of our choice to form a chain. A book doesn’t have to be connected to all of the others on the list – only to the one next to it in the chain.

This month we’re starting with a Japanese novel, Butter by Asako Yuzuki. I haven’t read it and probably won’t, but here’s what it’s about:

Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Centre convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can’t resist writing back.

Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body, might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought?

Inspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, “The Konkatsu Killer”, Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.

Butter is a dairy product, which makes me think of Nick Davenant, a character in Bee Ridgway’s The River of No Return (1) who owns a dairy farm in Vermont and is anxiously awaiting a visit from the cheese inspector at the beginning of the book. Nick is not just a dairy farmer, however – he is also a time traveller and was once an English nobleman who fought in the Napoleonic Wars. I think this book was intended to be the first in a series, but a sequel has never appeared.

Next is a simple link to another book with ‘river’ in the title: River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay (2). This novel is set in an alternate world based on China during the time of the Song Dynasty. Although Kay’s books are often described as historical fantasy, there are very few actual fantasy elements in this one, apart from some mentions of the spirits and fox-women who are part of Chinese myth.

Fox spirits also feature heavily in The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo (3), set in Manchuria in 1908. The novel follows the dual stories of an elderly private detective investigating a suspicious death and a white fox spirit who has taken the form of a human woman while she searches for the man who killed her daughter. I found this book very slow, but enjoyed the details of Chinese myth and foklore.

The title character in the Yangsze Choo novel is called Snow, so my next book is one in which snow features heavily in the plot: The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie (4). The village of Sittaford is cut off by snow, making it the perfect setting for a murder mystery to unfold. This is a wonderful standalone Christie novel and I loved the heroine, Emily Trefusis.

Like my edition of The Sittaford Mystery, Benighted by J.B. Priestley (5) also has a picture of a house on the cover. A married couple and their friend get caught in a storm while driving through the Welsh countryside one night and take shelter in a crumbling old mansion inhabited by a very strange family! This was my first book by Priestley and I’m sure I’ll be looking for another one.

Benighted was published in 1927, so the final book in my chain is another published in that same year. The Land of Green Ginger by Winifred Holtby (6) is about a missionary’s daughter who is born in South Africa but comes to England to be raised by her aunts in a small rural community in Yorkshire. I’ve read nearly all of Holtby’s novels now and this is probably my least favourite, but it still explores some interesting topics.

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And that’s my chain for June! My links have included: Dairy products, the word ‘river’, fox-women, snow, pictures of houses and the year 1927.

In July we’ll be starting with Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck.