Saturday 7 March 2020

Six Degrees of Separation: from Wolfe Island to The Glass Guardian


The Six Degrees of Separation meme is a monthly meme hosted by Books are my Favourite and Best.

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 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.

A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the ones next to them in the chain.


This month's chain begins with Wolfe Island by Lucy Treloar.


I haven't read this book and probably won't as I think it's dystopian and I'm not fond of that genre. It's set on an island in Chesapeake Bay, a very beautiful area, I've been there and can vouch for that.

Also set on an island but this time on Lake Superior is, A Superior Death by Nevada Barr.


The island is Isle Royale NP and this is an Anna Pigeon murder mystery, very exciting and informative about the area, I absolutely loved the book. Must get back to the series.

Isle Royale is part of Michigan which borders Lake Superior. Another state which borders that lake is Wisconsin and a book set in Wisconsin is The Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder.


This is the very first 'Little House' book featuring the Ingalls family. The narrator of them all is Laura, very young in this book of course but we still learn a lot as we experience a year living in the forests of Wisconsin in the late 1800s. Charming and delightful.

Another book featuring a 'Laura' is Love Letters by Katie Fforde.


This Laura works in a bookshop, a job she loves until the shop has to close. She takes a job organising a Literary Festival and gets into all kinds of trouble with one of the male authors. My favourite bits were the depictions of the romance and chick-lit authors who appeared to be having more fun than anyone. A fun read.

Another book with 'Letters' in the title is Letters From Skye by Jessica Brockmole.


This is a story of letters exchanged between a young writer of a book of poetry who lives on the Isle of Skye and an American who volunteers to drive ambulances at The Front in World War One. The Isle of Skye features very strongly, a beautiful but restricted place to live for a young woman.

Skye is also the setting for The Glass Guardian by Linda Gillard.


This is a delightful book about a woman, a TV gardening presenter, who suffers several deaths very close to her and goes to The Isle of Skye to grieve... to the home of her deceased aunt which has been left to her in her aunt's will. The supernatural plot is complicated but absorbing, for more see the link to my review above.

So, I've travelled from an island in Chesapeake Bay,to Lake Superior and Wisconsin and thus to England (with a quick foray to Ireland in that one), finally finishing on another island, the beautiful Isle of Skye where I have never been but hope to go one day.

Next month's Six Degrees will begin with Stasiland by Anna Funder.

~~~oOo~~~

7 comments:

Margaret @ BooksPlease said...

Lovely chain! Love Letters sounds good, it's been years since I read one of Katie Fforde's books, I'd forgotten I liked them! I loved The Glass Guardian, it brought tears to my years, so poignant. I have a copy of Letters from Skye but haven't read it yet and Skye is the one place in these these books that I have visited - a lovely place although it rained all the time I was there!

TracyK said...

A very nice chain, Cath. I have only read one book by Nevada Barr and I want to read more. I enjoyed the book I read, but I also like that the books are set in so many different places. I have a few of her books, and I just looked and I have this one and it is the 2nd one so I better pull it out and read it this year. Another long series to get involved with, though.

Travellin' Penguin said...

Wolfe Island is on our book group calendar for later in the year. I don't enjoy dystopian books either but it won't kill me to read one. Who knows? Maybe I'll like it better than I think. I like the books you mention around Lake Superior. I grew up in Michigan and spent many childhood summers at my grandparents cottage on Lake Michigan. Lake Superior area is a beautiful part of the world also.

Cath said...

Margaret: Thank you. I sort of grew away from Katie Fforde. Several I read were very good and then I read a few where I didn't care for the 'hero' and his behaviour at all so I don't read her as much now.

I'm determined to get to Skye one day!

Tracy: Thank you. Yes, that's exactly why I was attracted to the Nevada Barr books, I love reading about different parts of the US and every book in the series goes somewhere new.

Pam: You probably will like Wolfe Island more than you think, that's very much my experience with books I'm not sure I'll like but have to read.

I've only been to one of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie. We stayed in Port Clinton in Ohio and visited the Bass Islands... I thought it was magical. Perhaps one day I may get to see Lake Superior or Michigan.

DesLily said...

Yikes! You sure have been on a bunch of Islands! You amaze me that you can read so much and puzzles and now knitting!...which leads me to poor Peter... do you still cook for him?! LOL

Cath said...

Pat: What poor Peter? LOL! He's ok and can cook for himself, his mum taught him, but I still do it although he helps a lot. I do the knitting while I watch TV so no extra time required there but yeah, my hobbies do take a bit of organising to fit them all in. LOL

Délit Maille said...

Thankks great blog