Six Degrees of Separation, from After Story to The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly meme, now hosted by Kate @ books are my favorite and best.

On the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point 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.

This month we start from yet another book I haven't read, but one I'd love to someday:

0. After Story by Larissa Behrendt

Summary from Goodreads:
"When Indigenous lawyer Jasmine decides to take her mother Della on a tour of England's most revered literary sites, Jasmine hopes it will bring them closer together and help them reconcile the past.

Twenty-five years earlier the disappearance of Jasmine's older sister devastated their tight-knit community. This tragedy returns to haunt Jasmine and Della when another child mysteriously goes missing on Hampstead Heath. As Jasmine immerses herself in the world of her literary idols – including Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters and Virginia Woolf – Della is inspired to rediscover the wisdom of her own culture and storytelling. But sometimes the stories that are not told can become too great to bear."



I started the chain with another book I've read this year, where the main characters are dealing with disappearance of a family member:

1. Sunbirds by Penelope Slocombe

Excerpt from my review:

"This is not a book about birds, but about people. People who long for freedom that seems to be possessed only by birds. People who, just like birds, fly high, leaving the present place to another, whenever it likes to, without responsibility, without reserve. The question is, is it possible for human being to take the same way of life as of birds?"

It's about a disintegrated family when the 18 year-old son left home for a spiritual journey to Himalayan, and never returned. You can read more about it on my review.

The long for freedom in this books' characters reminded me of a similar kind of longing in the next book of the chain...

2. Blue Hawk by Chloe Turner

Excerpt from my review: "It is a wonderful journey of a woman's struggles in the men's world, it is also an insightful story of family, jealousy, pettiness, and friendship. All is beautifully written and thoroughly well researched."

If you love historical fiction, Blue Hawk will amuse you with its vivid description of clothier and dyeing business in the 17th century of England. The protagonist is a wonderfully strong and courageous young woman who loved the color blue.

My next link is another book that also centers around the color blue.

3. The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier

Summary from Goodreads:
"Meet Ella Turner and Isabelle du Moulin—two women born centuries apart, yet bound by a fateful family legacy. When Ella and her husband move to a small town in France, Ella hopes to brush up on her French, qualify to practice as a midwife, and start a family of her own. Village life turns out to be less idyllic than she expected, however, and a peculiar dream of the color blue propels her on a quest to uncover her family’s French ancestry. As the novel unfolds—alternating between Ella’s story and that of Isabelle du Moulin four hundred years earlier—a common thread emerges that unexpectedly links the two women. Part detective story, part historical fiction, The Virgin Blue is a novel of passion and intrigue that compels readers to the very last page."

Another book with the Virgin in the title is..

4. Vivaldi's Virgins by Barbara Quick

Summary from Goodreads:
"Abandoned as an infant, fourteen-year-old Anna Maria Dal Violin is one of the elite musicians living in the foundling home where the "Red Priest," Antonio Vivaldi, is maestro and composer. Fiercely determined to find out where she came from, Anna Maria embarks on a journey of self-discovery that carries her into a wondrous and haunting world of music and spectacle, bringing eighteenth-century Venice magically to life."

Another historical fiction from the author (Barbara Quick) I've enjoyed is...

5. A Golden Web by Barbara Quick

Summary from Goodreads:

"Alessandra is desperate to escape.

Desperate to escape her stepmother, who's locked her away for a year; to escape the cloister that awaits her and the marriage plans that have been made for her; to escape the expectations that limit her and every other girl in fourteenth-century Italy. There's no tolerance in her quiet village for Alessandra and her keen intelligence and unconventional ideas.

In defiant pursuit of her dreams, Alessandra undertakes an audacious quest, her bravery equaled only by the dangers she faces. Disguised and alone in a city of spies and scholars, Alessandra will find a love she could not foresee -- and an enduring fame."

This chain will be closed with another historical fiction about extraordinary struggle put up by a strong intelligent courageous young woman...

6. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

Summary from Goodreads:

"Calpurnia Virginia Tate is eleven years old in 1899 when she wonders why the yellow grasshoppers in her Texas backyard are so much bigger than the green ones. With a little help from her notoriously cantankerous grandfather, an avid naturalist, she figures out that the green grasshoppers are easier to see against the yellow grass, so they are eaten before they can get any larger.

As Callie explores the natural world around her, she develops a close relationship with her grandfather, navigates the dangers of living with six brothers, and comes up against just what it means to be a girl at the turn of the century."

Have you read those books? If you do #sixdegrees, how it worked out for you this time?