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!

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 Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke. I haven’t read it, but here’s what it’s about:

Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle – and her followers are sick with envy. Her charming farmhouse on her working ranch is artfully cluttered, her husband is a handsome cowboy, her homemade sourdough boules are each more beautiful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers and industrial-grade ovens behind the scenes? What her followers don’t know won’t hurt them.

Then, one morning, Natalie wakes up in a strange, horrible version of reality. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Is this a hoax? A reality show? A test from God? Natalie knows just two things for sure: this isn’t her perfect life, and she must escape, by any means possible.

I’m sure there are more creative directions I could have gone in for my first link, but as Yesteryear seems to involve an element of time travel, although apparently with a twist, I’m simply going to link to one of my favourite time travel novels, The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier (1). It’s set partly in 14th century Cornwall, but it wasn’t the historical storyline that interested me so much as the method of time travel itself – psychological via an experimental drug rather than physical – and the implications it has for the lives of our present day (1960s) characters.

Du Maurier is known for her strong affinity with Cornwall, where she lived for many years. Another author who has set several of her books in Cornwall is Jane Johnson – for example, The White Hare (2). This one is set in a fictional Cornish valley which is beautifully and vividly described. Johnson works the legend of the white hare into the novel – a legend which really is a part of Cornish forklore.

Hare Sitting Up by Michael Innes (3) shares a word in the title. It’s the eighteenth book in Innes’ Inspector John Appleby series – and you’ll be pleased to know it’s not necessary to have read the previous seventeen first! In this book, more of a thriller than a mystery, Appleby is investigating the disappearance of Professor Howard Juniper, a top government scientist who has been conducting secret research into biological warfare.

Juniper isn’t a very common name but The Cromarty Library Circle by Shona MacLean (4) features a Miss Juniper, an elderly governess with a dubious past who has taken two young women under her wing to help prepare them for their future lives. According to the author, she based the character on Elizabeth Bond, a real schoolmistress from Scotland’s Black Isle.

In MacLean’s novel, a group of people from the Black Isle town of Cromarty decide to start a circulating library. Another novel about libraries is The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles (5) which tells the story of the American Library in Paris and the people who worked there during the Nazi occupation. There’s also a modern day storyline which I didn’t like very much, but the wartime parts were fascinating and it was good to see that the library staff found various ways to keep the library operating throughout the war.

As Emma of Words and Peace is hosting Paris in July this month, I thought it would be nice to stay with books set in Paris for my final link. Paris by Edward Rutherfurd (6) is an obvious choice as it takes us through the history of the city from the 13th century to the 20th, following six different fictional families through multiple generations. I’ve read and enjoyed all of Rutherfurd’s novels (they’re all written in a similar way) but this isn’t one of my favourites as I found the non-chronological structure confusing.

And that’s my chain for July. My links have included: time travel, Cornwall, hares, the name Juniper, libraries and Paris.

In August we’ll be starting with Land by Maggie O’Farrell.