#6Degrees of Separation – A book chain from The Safekeep to A Light of Her Own

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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.

This month’s starting book is The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden, winner of The Women’s Prize for Fiction 2025. For once, it’s a book I’ve actually read although I wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about it as other readers. Links from each title will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.

Isabel, the main character in The Safekeep, is the sole occupant of the family home purchased by her uncle after the Second World War, but it is her brother who will eventually inherit it. The possession of property also features in The Dutch House by Ann Patchett in which brother and sister, Danny and Maeve, are thrown out by their stepmother from the house in which they grew up.

Objects separated from their owners is the subject of Lost Property by Helen Paris. Dot Watson works in Baker Street’s Lost Property office diligently cataloguing lost umbrellas, lone gloves and an alarming number of shoes.

Deconstructing the previous author’s name, Helen and Paris are both characters in Homer’s The Iliad, set towards the end of the Trojan War. Euripides’ play The Trojan Women is one of the plays staged by Lampo and Gelon, the main characters in Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon.

Glorious Exploits won the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize in 2024. This year’s winner is The Artist by Lucy Steeds. It’s set in a remote farmhouse in Provence, the home of a reclusive painter.

Set in 17th century Rome, Disobedient by Elizabeth Fremantle is the fictionalised story of Artemisia Gentileschi whose dreams of becoming an artist seem likely to be thwarted by the limitations placed on the lives of women.

A Light of Her Own by Carrie Callaghan is based on the life of another remarkable 17th century woman, Judith Leyster, who sought to challenge the social norms and prejudices of the time in order to fulfil her artistic talent. It’s set in the Netherlands which is also the location of The Safekeep bringing my chain full circle.

Yorkshire Day – Ten Novels Set in Yorkshire

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York Minster

Today is Yorkshire Day, an annual celebration to promote the historic English county of Yorkshire. Inaugurated by The Yorkshire Ridings Society in 1975, amongst other things, it marks the day the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 was passed, something campaigned for by William Wilberforce, a Yorkshire Member of Parliament. (Today also happens to be my husband’s birthday. He likes to say he was born in Yorkshire although he wasn’t, but his mother was.)

To mark Yorkshire Day, here are ten novels set in that county. Links from the title will take you to my review of the book description on Goodreads.

  1. The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers – Describes the exploits of a gang known as the ‘Cragg Vale Coiners’ in Calderdale, West Yorkshire in the 1760s
  2. Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson – Ruby Lennox narrates her life starting with her birth in a flat above a pet shop in an ancient street near York Minster
  3. The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby – The story of twenty-year-old Muriel Hammond, living within the suffocating confines of Edwardian middle-class society in a Yorkshire village
  4. The Vanished Bride by Bella Ellis – When a young wife and mother goes missing, the Brontë sisters of Haworth turn detective
  5. A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines – Troubled teenager Billy Casper, growing up in the small Yorkshire mining town of Barnsley, discovers a new passion in life when he finds Kes, a kestrel hawk 
  6. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett – Mary Lennox, lonely and unwanted, arrives from India to live with her uncle in a gloomy house in Yorkshire
  7. Sovereign (Matthew Shardlake #3) by C. J. Samson – Shardlake investigates the murder of a York glazier during King Henry VIII’s Progress to the North in 1541
  8. The Year of the Runaways by Sanjeev Sahota – Three young men and one woman who have journeyed from India to England find themselves sharing a dilapidated house in Sheffield
  9. Gallows View (Inspector Banks #1) by Peter Robinson – Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks, recently moved to the Yorkshire Dales from London, finds life in the country not quite as idyllic as he imagined
  10. The Coffin Path by Katherine Clements – Set on the Yorkshire moors, a story of ancient curses, family secrets and a crumbling old house reached only by an ancient track called the coffin path 
The Vanished Bride