Tag: Reviews

#6Degrees of Separation – A book chain from The French Lieutenant’s Woman to J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement

whatcathyreadnext7 Comments

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.

We begin the year with a wildcard which means starting with the final book in our December chain. In my case that was The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles. Links from each title will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.

The French Lieutenant’s Woman is set in Lyme Regis, Dorset which is also one of the locations in Persuasion, Jane Austen’s last completed novel. It’s a story of second chances in which Anne Elliot and naval officer, Captain Frederick Wentworth, meet again years after their engagement was broken off because of family pressure.

Another book featuring a sea captain is The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat. Captain Ericson (memorably played by Jack Hawkins in the film version) commands the corvette Compass Rose, assigned to escort Atlantic convoys and protect them against German U-boat attacks during World War 2.

Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian, set in the early years of the 19th century, features Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend ship’s surgeon, Stephen Maturin. Aboard their ship, the HMS Sophie, they become involved in numerous sea battles.

A very similarly named character appears in Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier. Jaded by court life in Restoration London, Lady Dona St. Columb flees to Cornwall where she encounters and falls in love with Jean-Benoit Aubéry, a French pirate. She joins the crew of his ship disguised as a boy.

In The Ghost Ship by Kate Mosse, the third book in the Joubert Family Chronicles, Louise Reydon-Joubert is determined not to let her gender prevent her achieving her ambition to become captain of her own ship.

At one point in The Ghost Ship, a mysterious vessel is seen floating silently on the water, evoking an image of the Mary Celeste, a merchant ship discovered adrift and deserted in the Atlantic Ocean in December 1872. J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement is an 1884 short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle loosely based on the mystery of the Mary Celeste. It purports to be an eye-witness testimony of the end met by those on the mysterious “ghost ship”. (Bonus facts courtesy of Wikipedia: In the story the ship is called the Marie Celeste, a misnaming which has become common, initially the story was published anonymously, and some – including one newspaper – mistook it as a true account.)

Ahoy there, a chain with a very nautical theme.

The Cruel Sea

#WWWWednesday – 31st December 2025

whatcathyreadnext1 Comment

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!

What I’m Currently Reading

Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor (Picador)

It is 1938 and for Manod, a young woman living on a remote island off the coast of Wales, the world looks ready to end just as she is trying to imagine a future for herself. The ominous appearance of a beached whale on the island’s shore, and rumours of submarines circling beneath the waves, have villagers steeling themselves for what’s to come. Empty houses remind them of the men taken by the Great War, and of the difficulty of building a life in the island’s harsh, salt-stung landscape.

When two anthropologists from the mainland arrive, Manod sees in them a rare moment of opportunity to leave the island and discover the life she has been searching for. But, as she guides them across the island’s cliffs, she becomes entangled in their relationship, and her imagined future begins to seem desperately out of reach.

What I’ve Just Read

Odin’s Game (The Whale Road Chronicles #1) by Tim Hodkinson (Head of Zeus)

A Granite Silence by Nina Allan (riverrun)

A Granite Silence is an exploration – a journey through time to a particular house, in a particular street, Urquhart Road, Aberdeen in 1934, where eight-year-old Helen Priestly lives with her mother and father.

Among this long, grey corridor of four-storey tenements, a daunting expanse of granite, working families are squashed together like pickled herrings in their narrow flats. Here are Helen’s the Topps, the Josses, the Mitchells, the Gordons, the Donalds, the Coulls and the Hunts.

Returning home from school for her midday meal, Helen is sent by her mother Agnes to buy a loaf from the bakery at the end of the street. Agnes never sees her daughter alive again.

Nina Allan explores the aftermath of Helen’s disappearance, turning a probing eye to the close-knit neighbourhood – where everyone knows everyone, at least by sight – and with subtlety and sympathy, explores the intricate layers of truth and falsehood that can coexist in one moment of history. (Review to follow)

Tin Man by Sarah Winman (Headline)

It begins with a painting won in a raffle: fifteen sunflowers, hung on the wall by a woman who believes that men and boys are capable of beautiful things.

And then there are two boys, Ellis and Michael, who are inseparable.
And the boys become men, and then Annie walks into their lives, and it changes nothing and everything. (Review to follow)

Corpus: Beginnings by Rory Clements (Zaffre)

The Huntingfield Paintress by Pamela Holmes (Urbane)

Plucky and headstrong Mildred Holland revelled in the eight years she and her husband, the vicar William Holland, spent travelling 1840s Europe, finding inspiration in recording beautiful artistic treasures and collecting exotic artifacts. But William’s new posting in a tiny Suffolk village is a world apart and Mildred finds a life of tea and sympathy dull and stifling in comparison.

When a longed-for baby does not arrive, she sinks into despondency and despair. What options exist for a clever, creative woman in such a cossetted environment?

A sudden chance encounter fires Mildred’s creative imagination and she embarks on a herculean task that demands courage and passion. Defying her loving but exasperated husband, and mistrustful locals who suspect her of supernatural powers, Mildred rediscovers her passion and lives again through her dreams of beauty. (Review to follow)

A Kind of Light by H. R. F. Keating (Endeavour)

Two stories, two journeys into the darkness…

Thomasina le Mesurier writes in her journal of finding a miraculous plant which has the potential to save thousands of lives with its medicinal properties. A plant which could have saved her beloved mentor and friend, Doctor Diver, who fell ill with the Typhoid Fever. She insists on venturing deep into the jungle to source the healing plant and take it back to England. Despite warning, Thomasina ventures off, following Doctor Diver’s notes… But is she chasing after a delusion?

The forest is rumoured to hold unmentionable terrors and unfathomable enigmas, but regardless, Thomasina embarks on her journey into the heart of Africa, accompanied only by three local bearers. Can she survive the dangers of the dark? And what will her journey bring?

In the present day a young couple, David Teigh and Theresa Olivia Mountjoy, stumble upon an article about the writings of Thomasina. They soon set off on their journey, following in Thomasina’s footsteps, to discover the remaining notebooks preserved in the depths of Africa, all the while recording a documentary film of their treacherous journey. Will the adventurers’ respective searches come to a satisfying, or a more gruesome end?

One thing is certain, no traveller who undertakes this expedition can emerge unchanged… (Review to follow)

What I’ll Be Reading Next

Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet (Polygon)

On 9 July 1857, Angus MacPhee, a labourer from Liniclate on the island of Benbecula, murdered his father, mother and aunt. At trial in Inverness he was found to be criminally insane and confined in the Criminal Lunatic Department of Perth Prison.

Some years later, Angus’s older brother Malcolm recounts the events leading up to the murders while trying to keep a grip on his own sanity. Malcolm is living in isolation, ostracised by the community and haunted by this gruesome episode in his past.