#6Degrees of Separation – A book chain from Yesteryear to The Psychology of Time Travel

It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation.

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own #6Degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on X using the hashtag #6Degrees.

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This month’s starting book is Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, a book you can’t get away from at the moment if you spend any time on social media. I haven’t read it but I’ve read so much about it I feel I hardly need to, plus I’m pretty sure it will be my book club’s pick at some point. Links from each title will take you to my review.

I could have gone with the time travel element but instead for my first link I’ve picked another book about a wife, The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry. It’s the story of Emma, wife of Thomas Hardy, whose own literary ambitions had to take second place to her husband’s and whose role as his assistant was eventually supplanted by a younger woman.

The wife of another literary figure – Charles Dickens – is the focus of Outside the Magic Circle by Heera Datta. Dickens seperated from his wife Catherine after twenty-two years of marriage but it was she who was shunned by society and left estranged from her ten children whilst he painted himself as the victim.

Dickens is shown in a more positive light in The Household by Stacey Halls, which although fiction is based on historical fact. Along with his friend the wealthy Angela Burdett-Coutts, Dickens did establish a home for ‘fallen’ women, a ‘halfway house between a refuge and a social experiment’, where women “rescued” from jails, hospitals and workhouses were educated, trained for domestic service and sent to start a new life overseas.

Another refuge for those in need features in Sanctuary Motel by Alan Orloff. Kindhearted Mess Hopkins, proprietor of the rather run down Fairfax Manor Inn, throws open its doors to the homeless, victims of abuse, or anyone else in need of a roof over their head. 

The Regent Hotel in Birmingham, the setting of Hokey Pokey by Kate Mascarenhas, may seem the epitome of 1920s glamour and hospitality on the surface but underneath evil stalks its corridors.

Kate Mascarenhas’s previous novel The Psychology of Time Travel starts in 1967 when four female scientists create the world’s first-time machine. They have no idea of its repercussions for themselves or the world.

Oh look, my chain has brought me in a time travelling circle. Who could have seen that coming? Where did your chain take you?