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 Rapture by Emily Maguire, which is loosely based on the legend of Pope Joan, who was supposedly the first and only female pope. I haven’t read it and am not sure if I want to, but it does sound interesting.

I found it very easy to decide on my first link this month, particularly with the recent death of Pope Francis. It’s Conclave by Robert Harris (1), a fictional account of a papal conclave, the process by which cardinals gather at the Vatican to elect a new pope. It may not sound like the most exciting subject for a thriller, but Harris makes it gripping and suspenseful.

The Vatican is my next link and leads me to The Vatican Princess by CW Gortner (2). Set in Renaissance Italy, this novel is narrated by Lucrezia Borgia, whose father Rodrigo bribes his way to the papal throne and becomes Pope Alexander VI.

City of God by Cecelia Holland (3) also tells the story of the Borgias, this time seen through the eyes of Nicholas Dawson, secretary to the Florentine ambassador to Rome. This is a complex novel, mainly concerned with political intrigue and spying, and gives a completely different perspective from the Gortner book.

Another book with the word ‘God’ in the title is Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry (4). Set in Ireland, this novel follows Tom Kettle, a retired police detective looking back at his memories of a case from the 1960s which has been reopened. It involves one of the darkest episodes in the recent history of the Catholic Church.

In A History of Loneliness (5), John Boyne tackles the same subject from the perspective of Odran Yates, a Catholic priest. This is a fascinating novel, raising the question of whether choosing to look the other way and do nothing makes us complicit in crime.

The John Boyne novel is set in Dublin and so is The Graces by Siobhan MacGowan (6), the final book in my chain. This is the story of Rosaleen Moore, known as The Rose, who becomes known for her gifts of prophecy and healing in the early 20th century and makes a shocking deathbed confession to the priests of Mount St Kilian Abbey.

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And that’s my chain for May! My links have included: popes, the Vatican, the Borgias, the word God, Irish authors writing on a shared theme and Dublin. The books are also all connected to the topic of religion and the Catholic Church.

In June we’ll be starting with All Fours by Miranda July.

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 Knife by Salman Rushdie. Here’s what it’s about:

On the morning of 12 August 2022, Salman Rushdie was standing onstage at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York, preparing to give a lecture on the importance of keeping writers safe from harm, when a man in black – black clothes, black mask – rushed down the aisle towards him, wielding a knife. His first thought: So it’s you. Here you are.

What followed was a horrific act of violence that shook the literary world and beyond. Now, for the first time, Rushdie relives the traumatic events of that day and its aftermath, as well as his journey towards physical recovery and the healing that was made possible by the love and support of his wife, Eliza, his family, his army of doctors and physical therapists, and his community of readers worldwide.

I haven’t read Knife, but I’m going to begin my chain by linking to the one book I have read by Salman Rushdie: The Enchantress of Florence (1). This unusual novel takes us to a 16th century India populated with giants and witches, where emperors have imaginary wives and artists hide inside paintings.

I read The Enchantress of Florence for a reading event called A More Diverse Universe hosted by a fellow blogger in 2013. The following year, for the same event, I read another book by an Indian author – The Twentieth Wife by Indu Sundaresan (2). It’s set in 17th century Mughal India and is the first in a trilogy of novels describing the history behind the construction of the Taj Mahal.

From twentieth to tenth now! The Tenth Gift by Jane Johnson (3) is a fictional account of the 1625 raid on Cornwall by Barbary pirates who took sixty men, women and children into captivity to be sold at the slave markets of Morocco. The novel is divided between the past and the modern day, focusing on the story of one of the young women abducted during the raid.

Another author known for her books set in her native Cornwall is Daphne du Maurier. I could have chosen several of her novels for my chain, but I’ve decided on Jamaica Inn (4). This 1936 classic features stormy weather, smugglers, locked rooms, shipwrecks, desolate moors, and a remote, lonely inn – everything you could ask for in a Gothic novel! It isn’t one of my absolute favourites by du Maurier, but I enjoyed it much more on a re-read several years ago.

Using Jamaica as my next link, Small Island by Andrea Levy (5) is about a Jamaican couple who leave their island in the 1940s to come to another island, Britain. The book is narrated by the two Jamaican characters and the British couple whose house they lodge in, giving a range of voices and perspectives.

My final book is linked by a word in the title (island) and also a theme of immigration. Island Song by Pepsi Demacque-Crockett (6) follows the stories of two people from St Lucia who start new lives in London in the 1950s. The book is inspired by the author’s own family history and I enjoyed reading about the experiences of the characters, both good and bad.

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And that’s my chain for April! The links have included Salman Rushdie books, blogging events, positional numbers, Cornwall, Jamaica and immigration. My chain has taken me from India to St Lucia via Italy, Morocco, England and Jamaica!

Next month we’ll be starting with Rapture by Emily Maguire.

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 Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. It’s not a book I’ve read, but here’s what it’s about:

“On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her step. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police are here to interrogate her husband, Larry, a trade unionist.

Ireland is falling apart. The country is in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny and when her husband disappears, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a society that is quickly unravelling. Soon, she must decide just how far she is willing to go to keep her family safe.

Exhilarating, terrifying and propulsive, Paul Lynch’s Booker Prize-winning novel is a devastating vision of a country falling apart and a moving portrait of the resilience of the human spirit when faced with the darkest of times.”

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It can be difficult to know where to begin when you haven’t read the starter book. I’m going to focus on two words from the first sentence of the blurb – Dublin and scientist. The Coroner’s Daughter by Andrew Hughes (1) is also set in Dublin – in this case in the 19th century – and features a young woman, Abigail Lawless, who, as the title suggests, is the daughter of a coroner. The novel follows Abigail’s investigations into the deaths of a maid and her newborn baby, as well as her determination to pursue her passion for astronomy and forensic science at a time when they were not considered suitable interests for a woman.

Next, a simple link using the word ‘daughter’. Faro’s Daughter by Georgette Heyer (2) was published in 1941 and is one of her Georgian novels, set slightly earlier than her more famous Regencies. The hero, Max Ravenscar is enlisted by his aunt to prevent the marriage of her son, Adrian, to Deb Grantham, the hostess of a gaming house. Although Heyer is always entertaining, this book isn’t one of my favourites as I never really warmed to the characters.

The word ‘faro’ makes me think of ‘pharaoh’. In fact, it has been suggested that the name of the card game faro could be derived from the picture of a pharaoh on an early set of cards. When Women Ruled the World by Kara Cooney (3) is a biography of six female rulers of Ancient Egypt – Merneith, Neferusobek, Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, Tawosret and Cleopatra. I found it interesting because, apart from Cleopatra, I knew nothing at all about these female pharaohs, but I also felt that I didn’t learn as much about them as I would have liked because Cooney spent too much time drawing parallels with modern day world leaders, which seemed to be the real focus of the book.

A much more enjoyable non-fiction book about female rulers is The Dark Queens by Shelley Puhak (4). The book explores the lives of Brunhild and Fredegund, who belonged to the Merovingian dynasty in the 6th century and ruled over large areas of what are now known as France and Germany. Not knowing anything about either of these queens, I found this book completely fascinating and also very entertaining, although it might not suit readers who want something more academic.

I’m linking to another book with the word ‘dark’ in the title now: Full Dark House (5), the first book in Christopher Fowler’s series about two octogenarian detectives, Arthur Bryant and John May, who work for the Peculiar Crimes Unit, a branch of the London Metropolitan Police created to deal with unusual cases. This book includes flashbacks to Bryant and May’s first ever case involving some murders in a London theatre during the Blitz, while another mystery begins to play out in the modern day. I really enjoyed the first four books in this series and still need to continue with the others!

Another book with an elderly protagonist is The Old Man’s Birthday by Richmal Crompton (6). Matthew Royston is preparing to celebrate his ninety-fifth birthday with a family party to which he has invited all of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The novel is set during the course of that one day, as we meet each member of the family in the hours leading up to the party. I really enjoyed it and although I can’t find a way to link it back to the starting book this month, I think it’s a good place to end my chain!

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And that’s my chain for March. My links included scientists in Dublin, the word ‘daughter’, faro/pharaoh, women rulers, the word ‘dark’ and elderly characters.

In April we’ll be starting with Salman Rushdie’s memoir, Knife.

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 Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos.

Published in 1782, just years before the French Revolution, Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a disturbing and ultimately damning portrayal of a decadent society. At its centre are two aristocrats, former lovers, who embark on a sophisticated game of seduction and manipulation to bring amusement to their jaded existences. While the Marquise de Merteuil challenges the Vicomte de Valmont to seduce an innocent convent girl, the Vicomte is also occupied with the conquest of a virtuous married woman. But as their intrigues become more duplicitous and they find their human pawns responding in ways they could not have predicted, the consequences prove to be more serious, and deadly, than Merteuil and Valmont could have guessed.

Dangerous Liaisons has been adapted for film several times, sometimes transposing the setting to different periods and countries. The most famous version was the 1988 one, which received seven Oscar nominations including one for Glenn Close for Best Actress. She also appeared in an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Crooked House (1) in 2017.

In the foreword, Christie states that “practically everybody has liked Crooked House, so I am justified in my own belief that it is one of my best”. Similarly, Thomas Hardy named his novel The Woodlanders (2) as a personal favourite, saying “I like it as a story best of all”. It’s one of my favourite Hardy novels as well – definitely in my top three!

Trees grow in woodlands, so the next book I’m linking to is The Dance Tree by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (3). This fascinating novel is set in Strasbourg in 1518 during a plague of dancing – something which may sound strange, but did actually happen!

Another novel I’ve read with a dancing theme is Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay (4) in which a retired ballerina looks back on her career with the Bolshoi Ballet in the 1940s and 50s.

A simple link to another book with ‘winter’ in the title: The Winter Garden by Nicola Cornick (5), which tells the story of the family of Robert Catesby, one of the conspirators involved in the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. I found it interesting to read about Catesby as the name usually associated with the Gunpowder Plot is Guy Fawkes.

Lizzie Fawkes is the main character in Birdcage Walk by Helen Dunmore (6). Although the novel is set in England, the lives of the characters are affected by events in France as the French Revolution gathers pace. With our starting book, Dangerous Liaisons, being set just before the Revolution, I think this brings the chain full circle!

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And that’s my chain for February! My links this month have included: Glenn Close adaptations, authors’ personal favourites, woods and trees, dancing, the word ‘winter’ and the name Fawkes.

In March we’ll be starting with Prophet Song by Paul Lynch.

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 Orbital by Samantha Harvey. I haven’t read it and it doesn’t sound like my usual sort of book, but so many people have loved it that I’m starting to think I’ll have to at least try it. Here’s what it’s about:

A team of astronauts in the International Space Station collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day.

Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction.

The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part – or protective – of it. They begin to ask, what is life without earth? What is earth without humanity?

I’ll start with a book I have read by Samantha Harvey, The Western Wind (1). This is a mystery novel set in a small English village in 1491 and taking place over a period of four days. Unusually, the story is told in reverse, beginning on the fourth day and then moving backwards in time.

Another novel written in reverse is The Night Watch by Sarah Waters (2). This is one of my favourite books by Waters and follows the stories of four people during and after World War II, introducing us to the characters in 1947 before moving back in time to 1944 and then 1941.

The word ‘watch’ also appears in the title of Watch the Lady by Elizabeth Fremantle (3). This is a novel about Penelope Devereux, 16th century noblewoman and sister of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, a favourite of Elizabeth I’s. Penelope is thought to be the inspiration for the poet Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella.

The name Penelope leads me to my next book, The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood (4). This is a retelling of the events of the Odyssey from the perspectives of Penelope and the twelve maids who were hanged by her son, Telemachus. The sections narrated by the maids are written in a different style every time – a poem, a ballad, a lecture and even a trial.

Cuddy by Benjamin Myers (5) is also written in a range of styles including a narrative poem and a ghost story told through diary entries. The separate sections of the book all add up to paint a picture of the life and legacy of the Anglo-Saxon monk St Cuthbert, sometimes known by the nickname Cuddy.

My final link is a simple one – another author with the name Benjamin. Well, actually Benjamin Black is a pseudonym of the Irish author John Banville. He has written a number of crime novels under the Black name, including the Quirke series about a 1950s pathologist and a standalone mystery, Prague Nights (6), set in 16th century Prague.

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And that’s my first chain of 2025! My links included Samantha Harvey books, novels with reverse timelines, the word ‘watch’, characters called Penelope, books written in mixtures of styles and authors with the name Benjamin.

In February we’ll be starting with Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos.

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 Sandwich by Catherine Newman, as usual a book I haven’t read. I don’t have any plans to read it, but here’s what it’s about:

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape. Their rustic beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, its quirky furniture and mismatched pots and pans greeted like old friends.

Now, sandwiched between her children who are adult enough to be fun but still young enough to need her, and her parents who are alive and healthy, Rocky wants to preserve this golden moment forever. This one precious week when everything is in balance; everything is in flux.

But every family has its secrets and hers is no exception.

With her body in open revolt and surprises invading her peaceful haven, the perfectly balanced seesaw of Rocky’s life is tipping towards change…

I wasn’t sure how to get started with this month’s chain. I seem to have used food-related links a few times lately, so wanted something different. Sandwich is being marketed as ‘The NYT bestseller from the author of Richard & Judy Book Club pick, We All Want Impossible Things’ so I looked to see which other books had been part of the Richard & Judy Book Club over the last year or two and noticed The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett (1). I love Hallett’s books, although I know they’re not for everyone. This one is about a cult led by a man who calls himself the Angel Gabriel and is written in the form of emails, letters, WhatsApp messages, and even excerpts from books and film scripts.

A simpler link next, using a shared word in the title. Less than Angels (2) was the first Barbara Pym novel I read and I enjoyed it, although I’ve since read others by her that I liked better. The book was published in 1955 and tells the story of a group of anthropology students at a London research centre. I read it for a Barbara Pym Reading Week hosted by two fellow bloggers in 2013.

Another author I tried for the first time thanks to an event hosted by a blogger was Margaret Kennedy – I read her The Constant Nymph (3) for a Reading Week a year later in 2014. Again, it wasn’t a favourite but I liked it enough to read more of her work. The ‘nymph’ of the title is Tessa, the daughter of Albert Sanger, a musician who lives in a chalet in the Tyrol with his large family known as ‘Sanger’s circus’.

Part of The Unicorn Hunt by Dorothy Dunnett (4) is also set in the Tyrol. This is the fifth book in Dunnett’s House of Niccolo series and follows the rise in fortunes of Nicholas de Fleury, whom we first meet as a dyer’s apprentice in 15th century Bruges. The series takes us all over Europe and Africa and I thoroughly enjoyed all eight books.

Big Sky by Kate Atkinson (5) is also number five in a series, in this case the Jackson Brodie series. In this book, private investigator Jackson is on the trail of a client’s cheating husband when he encounters a desperate man standing on the edge of a cliff. Like the others in the series, this one is more about the characters than the mystery or the crimes being committed, but I think that’s why I enjoy them so much. I still have the latest book in the series waiting to be read.

My final link is to another book by an author whose name is Kate. The Wild Girl by Kate Forsyth (6) is the story of Dortchen Wild, a young woman who grows up next door to the Grimm family in the small German kingdom of Hessen-Cassel. The Grimms have two sons, Jakob and Wilhem, who of course become known as the Brothers Grimm. The novel explores how they collected their famous fairy tales and the role Dortchen may have played in this.

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And that’s my chain for December! My links have included: the Richard and Judy Book Club, the word ‘angels’, reading weeks, the Tyrol, the fifth book in a series and authors called Kate.

In January, we’ll be starting with the 2024 Booker Prize winner, Orbital by Samantha Harvey.

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 Intermezzo by Sally Rooney. As usual, it’s a book I haven’t read, but here’s what it’s about:

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties – successful, competent and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women – his enduring first love Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude – a period of desire, despair and possibility – a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.

The description of Ivan as a ‘competitive chess player’ makes me think of Adam Strauss, a character in Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz (1). Adam is a chess grandmaster and he and his neighbours become suspects in the murder of Giles Kenworthy, who has been making life difficult for them all since moving into their quiet London street. This is the fifth in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series, in which the author uses himself as a character in the books.

Another author who appears as a character in his own books is Akimitsu Takagi. I loved The Noh Mask Murder (2), which I read earlier this year in a new English translation by Jesse Kirkwood. First published in 1949, this is a very enjoyable locked room mystery and I found it interesting to learn about Japan in the post-war period, as well as the different types of masks used in Japanese theatre.

Next, a simple link using a shared word in the title. The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas (3) is the final book in the d’Artagnan series which begins with The Three Musketeers. A lot of people go straight from the first to the last without reading the middle books, but I would recommend not skipping any of them. In The Man in the Iron Mask, d’Artagnan and his three friends, Athos, Porthos and Aramis, become involved in a plot to free a prisoner from the Bastille who closely resembles the King of France.

The word Bastille leads me straight to The Bastille Spy by CS Quinn (4), a fast-paced historical thriller set during the French Revolution and featuring a female spy, Attica Morgan. I described this in my review as ‘a cross between The Scarlet Pimpernel, James Bond and Pirates of the Caribbean’. It’s a book not to be taken too seriously and I’m sure a lot of readers will find it fun, but it wasn’t really for me and I haven’t continued with the sequel.

I’ve read and reviewed several other books by authors with the surname Quinn (Kate Quinn, Frances Quinn and Anthony Quinn). Apart from the Quinns, the only other author I’ve read and reviewed on my blog whose name begins with a Q is Sarah Quigley, who wrote The Conductor (5). This is a fascinating novel about the conductor Karl Eliasberg who is given the task of performing the Seventh Symphony by Shostakovich to raise morale during the Siege of Leningrad.

In Murder to Music by Margaret Newman (6), a conductor is shot dead during a choir’s performance of a new mass. Detective Superintendent Simon Hudson happens to be present in the audience and begins to investigate. However, his own girlfriend, Delia, is on the choir committee and can’t be ruled out as a suspect! This entertaining 1959 novel could have been the start of a new mystery series, but Newman changed direction and began writing romance and family sagas under other pseudonyms.

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And that’s my chain for November. My links included: competitive chess players; authors using themselves as characters; the word ‘mask’; the Bastille; Q authors; and conductors. Intermezzo is a musical term, meaning ‘a short connecting instrumental movement’, so by finishing with Murder to Music I have managed to bring the chain full circle!

In December we’ll be starting with Sandwich by Catherine Newman.