Sunday, December 07, 2025

Six Degrees of Separation: Sea Scraper to The Four Dutchmen

Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best. The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links. I am also linking this post up with The Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz and A Good Book and a Cup of Tea hosted at Boondock Ramblings.




This month the starting point is a novella called Seascraper by Benjamin Wood, which was fitting given that there was an event called Novellas in November. 

Keeping with short stories/novellas and the word wood, I am choosing The Yellow Wood by Minnie Darke.  This was an Audible original short story that I listened to last year. 

I am focussing on the word yellow for my next selection and choosing Yellowcake by Margo Lanagan, which was a short story collection. I really enjoyed Margo Lanagan's writing but she disappeared of the publishing scene years ago now, which is a real shame.

A full length novel from the same author is Sea Hearts. I did think about going down the route of books which have different titles in different markets as this one was called Brides of Rollrock Island elsewhere. 

However, I couldn't resist sticking with the sea connection so I have chosen Never Want to Sea You Again by Leonie Mack. This short story was a fun read from earlier this year. One thing about this story is that you can choose your own spice level, so if you like closed door action you can choose one version and if you like it spicy you can read the open door version 

If I think of the sea, the one thing we know is that there are plenty of fish in the sea, and so I have chosen The Fish Girl by Mirandi Riwoe. (my review)

The Fish Girl was inspired by a character from a short story called The Four Dutchmen by W Somerset Maughan. In Vaughan's story, the character is a nameless "Malay trollop", whereas in The Fish Girl she is given a name and a whole backstory. 

Next month is a wildcard to begin the year so we need to start with the book you finished this month’s chain with. That will be interesting given I haven't actually read The Four Dutchmen. I actually found this month a bit challenging so hopefully next month's will be a bit easier!

See everyone next year!





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