#6Degrees of Separation: From What Are You Going Through to A Woman Made of Snow

background book stack books close up
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Pexels.com

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 six degrees 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 Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees.


This month’s starting book is What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez. Once again, it’s a book I haven’t read so for my first link I’m going to another book by the same author, The Friend – which I also haven’t read!  However, I understand it’s a story about how a bond forms between a woman and a dog.

This leads me to a book I actually have read – The Writer’s Cats by Muriel Barbery – a charming illustrated book in which the author reveals just how crucial a role her cats play in her writing.

My next link is the book that first introduced me to the work of Muriel Barbery, A Single Rose. In the book, Rose travels to Kyoto for the reading of the will of the Japanese father she never knew.

In Connectedness by Sandra Danby, an established artist asks a journalist to find the baby she gave away when she was an art student.

Staying on the theme of missing relatives, in The Vanished Child by M. J. Lee a genealogical investigator attempts to discover what happened to an illegitimate child given up for adoption many years before.

The final book in my chain is A Woman Made of Snow by Elisabeth Gifford in which a woman tries to discover the identity of her husband’s grandmother, a woman who seems to have been erased from the family’s history.

My chain has involved bonds formed and bonds broken. Where did your chain take you?

#WWWWednesday – 3rd November 2021

WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!


Currently reading

The Quiet People CoverThe Quiet People by Paul Cleave (Orenda Books)

Cameron and Lisa Murdoch are successful crime-writers. They have been on the promotional circuit, joking that no-one knows how to get away with crime like they do. After all, they write about it for a living.

So when their 7 year old son Zach goes missing, naturally the police and the public wonder if they have finally decided to prove what they have been saying all this time – are they trying to show how they can commit the perfect crime?

Now We Shall Be Entirely Free by Andrew Miller (Sceptre via NetGalley)

One rain-swept February night in 1809, an unconscious man is carried into a house in Somerset. He is Captain John Lacroix, home from Britain’s disastrous campaign against Napoleon’s forces in Spain. Gradually Lacroix recovers his health, but not his peace of mind – he cannot talk about the war or face the memory of what happened in a village on the gruelling retreat to Corunna. After the command comes to return to his regiment, he sets out instead for the Hebrides, with the vague intent of reviving his musical interests and collecting local folksongs.

Lacroix sails north incognito, unaware that he has far worse to fear than being dragged back to the army: a vicious English corporal and a Spanish officer are on his trail, with orders to kill. The haven he finds on a remote island with a family of free-thinkers and the sister he falls for are not safe, at all.

Gods of RomeGods of Rome (Rise of Emperors #3) by Gordon Doherty and Simon Turney (Aries)

For one to rule, the other must die.

312 AD is a year of horrific and brutal warfare. Constantine’s northern army is a small force, plagued by religious rivalries, but seemingly unstoppable as they invade Maxentius’ Italian heartlands. These relentless clashes, incidents of treachery, and twists of fortune see Maxentius’ armies driven back to Rome. Constantine has his prize in sight, yet his army is diminished and on the verge of revolt. Maxentius meanwhile works to calm a restive and dissenting Roman populace. When the two forces clash in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, there are factors at work beyond their control and soon they are left with carnage.

There is only one way Constantine and Maxentius’ rivalry will end. With one on a bloodied sword and the other the sole ruler of Rome… 


Recently finished

Sergeant Salinger by Jerome Charyn (No Exit Press)

A Stranger from the Storm by William Burton McCormick (Mannison Press)

The Vanishing Half  by Brit Bennett (Dialogue Books)

The Girl from Bletchley Park by Kathleen McGurl (HQ Digital)

A Memory For Murder (Selma Falck #3) by Anne Holt (Corvus)


What Cathy (will) Read Next

My secret sister_1 large copyMy Secret Sister by Lauren Westwood 

How far would you go to save your child?

Claire is living every mother’s worst nightmare. Her daughter, Jess, has been diagnosed with a rare illness and desperately needs a bone marrow transplant. With no match on the registry, Claire turns to a charismatic geneticist for help and embarks on a Genetic Journey to seek a familial match for her daughter. On the other side of the country, Marianne suffers her eighth miscarriage. Her perfect life is rotting underneath, but she is determined to do whatever it takes to have a baby.

When DNA test results reveal that Claire and Marianne are half-sisters, Claire must face the dark lies of the past and make impossible choices about the future. Is her secret sister the answer to her prayers, or will she cost her everything?