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 Kate has said that we should start with either our book group’s current read or the book we’re currently reading. I’m not in a book group so it has to be the latter for me. I actually put this chain together in the last week of August (I like to prepare it in advance), so I used the book I was reading at that time, which was The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly.

The Matchbox Girl won this year’s Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. It’s set in Nazi controlled Vienna and is narrated by Adelheid Brunner, a girl with autism who collects matchboxes.

I’m using collections as my first link. The Collector of Dying Breaths by MJ Rose (1) is set in the 16th century at the court of Catherine de’ Medici and follows a perfumer who believes he can capture a person’s dying breath in a bottle and use it to reanimate their soul. An interesting and unusual book, but it’s the sixth in a series and I think I really needed to have read the others first.

The author of my next book shares a name with the previous one: she’s Rose Tremain, whose novel Restoration (2) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1989. It’s another historical novel, this time set at the court of Charles II, where physician Robert Merivel comes to the king’s attention after tending to his spaniels and later becomes embroiled in his love affairs. I enjoyed the book but preferred the sequel.

The winner of that same year’s Booker Prize was The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (3). I loved this book, which is narrated by an elderly butler, Stevens, reminiscing about his career in the service of Lord Darlington of Darlington Hall. Stevens is played by Anthony Hopkins in the 1993 adaptation.

One of Hopkins’ earliest roles was Richard the Lionheart in The Lion in Winter. Katharine Hepburn won an Oscar for the same film for her portrayal of Richard’s mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor’s story has been told in many novels, including The Summer Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick (4), the first part of an excellent trilogy taking us through the whole of Eleanor’s life.

The Queen of Fives by Alex Hay (5) shares a word in the title – but this time, it’s not about a real queen. The ‘Queen of Fives’ is a title given to Quinn Le Blanc, the leader of a London network of con artists. This was an entertaining read and I’ve actually just finished Alex Hay’s new one, The Midnight Guests, which was also fun.

My final link is to another book with playing cards on the cover. Ace, King, Knave by Maria McCann (6) is also a similar sort of novel, with two young women becoming embroiled in a world of thieves, pickpockets, gamblers and grave robbers. I really enjoyed this book but had forgotten all about it until putting this chain together!

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And that’s my chain for September! My links have included: collectors, the name Rose, the 1989 Booker Prize, Anthony Hopkins, the word Queen and playing cards.

In October we’ll be starting with Life of M by Rachel Cusk.

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 Land by Maggie O’Farrell. I haven’t read it, but am thinking about it. I didn’t love Hamnet as much as most people seem to have done, but would like to try more of her books and Land sounds interesting. Here’s what it’s about:

On a windswept peninsula stretching out into the Atlantic, Tomás and his reluctant son, Liam, are working for the great Ordnance Survey project to map the whole of Ireland. The year is 1865, and in a country not long since ravaged and emptied by the Great Hunger, the task is not an easy one. Tomás, however, is determined that his maps will be a record of the disaster.

The British soldiers in charge are due to arrive any day, expecting the work to be completed, but Tomás is sent off course by an unsettling encounter in a copse. His life, and those of his family, will never be the same again. Liam is terrified by the sudden change in his taciturn father. What was it that caused such cracks to open in Tomás and how is Liam, aged only ten, going to finish the mapping, and get them both home?

I’m going to use mapping as my first link. Harvest by Jim Crace (1) explores the reactions of a small rural community to the arrival of a ‘chart-maker’ who begins to measure and map their land – and their discovery that there are plans to enclose their fields and convert them to sheep farming. This is an unusual novel because we aren’t told exactly when or where it is set, leaving everything vague and timeless.

I have read another book with Harvest in the title: Random Harvest by James Hilton (2). This 1941 novel tells the story of Charles Rainier who is injured on a battlefield in France in 1917 and wakes up two years later in Liverpool with no memory at all of the intervening period. I loved this book and was completely taken by surprise by the ending.

Hilton, of course, is the name of a famous hotel chain. A book set in a hotel (though not a Hilton) is The Christmas Clue by Nicola Upson (3). Anthony and Elva Pratt, creators of the game Cluedo, are invited to host a murder mystery weekend at the Tudor Close Hotel – but before they even arrive, they find themselves with a real crime to solve. I found this an enjoyable Christmas read combining historical people and events with a fictional story.

Nicola Upson is better known for her series of novels featuring the classic crime author Josephine Tey in the role of a detective. My next link, then, is to a book by Tey herself: The Daughter of Time (4), in which Inspector Alan Grant has a broken leg and decides to investigate the alleged crimes of Richard III from his hospital bed. Reading everything he can find about Richard and the disappearances of the Princes in the Tower, Grant begins to discover that historical sources can’t always be trusted and that history is written by the victors.

Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry (5) shares a word in the title. Set in Ireland, this novel follows retired police detective Tom Kettle as he looks back at his memories of a case from the 1960s which has been reopened. It involves one of the darkest episodes in the history of the Catholic Church and is not a comfortable book to read but Barry’s writing is as beautiful as ever.

The name Kettle makes me think of cups of tea, so my final book is Tea on Sunday by Lettice Cooper (6). Her only mystery novel, it was published in 1973 but feels like a much older book. The plot revolves around the death of Alberta Mansbridge, found strangled in her home as she waits for her guests to arrive for a tea party. Although the mystery isn’t very strong, the characters make this book worth reading.

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And that’s my chain for August! My links have included: Map making, the word Harvest, Hilton hotels, Josephine Tey, the word Time and kettles.

In September we’ll be starting with either our book group’s current selection or the book that we’re currently reading. As I’m not in a book group, for me it will have to be a current read!