SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION: From Fleishman is in Trouble to The Ballad of John MacLea

The first Saturday of the month is time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

This month the starting point is Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, a book that topped the critics ‘best of 2019’ lists.

Once again we're starting with a novel I haven't read. That's okay. I'm getting used to searching for that first link no matter how obscure. This time, however, I didn't have to look too deeply. I'm using the fact that this was Brodesser-Akner's debut novel to make my
first link.

Another debut novel of 2019 was Anita Franks' The Lost Ones, a gothic paranormal story set in 1917. This leads me to Silence for the Dead by Simone St. James, another gothic paranormal story set in a hospital for shell-shocked World War I soldiers in 1919.

The year 1919 links to Armistice by Nick Trafford about a woman endeavouring to discover the truth behind her fiancé's death which occurred minutes after the Armistice. Nick Trafford is foremost a playwright and Armistice is his only novel to-date.


Another playwright who has recently turned to writing novels is Lynn Brittney. She is the author of the Mayfair 100 series of historical mysteries set in London during World War I, of which Murder in Belgravia is the first book. Lynn Brittney is the mother of actor Tom Brittney, who played Lieutenant Jeremy Foster in the first series of Outlander and is now the new vicar in the current series of Grantchester.

James Norton was the original vicar in Grantchester. He also played the role of Prince Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky in the six part BBC TV adaptation (2016) of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. One of the great battles in this novel is the Battle of Borodino in 1812.

Another theatre of war in 1812 was the British Province of Upper Canada, the setting for The Ballad of John MacLea by A.J. MacKenzie. This is the first book in a series featuring the adventures of John MacLea, a captain in the British Militia.


That's my Six Degrees of Separation for this month. I've gone from present day USA back in time to Canada of 1812. Did you play this month? Where did your links take you?

Next month (March 7, 2019), the starting point is Lucy Treloar’s Wolfe Island.