Six Degrees of Separation from Romantic Comedy to The Daughter of Time

Published on by Margaret

It’s time again for Six Degrees of Separation, a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. Each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the one next to it in the chain.

The starting book this month is Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfield a book I haven’t read. Amazon describes it thus: A TV script writer thinks she’s over romance, until an unlikely love interest upends all her assumptions: a humorous, subversive and tender-hearted novel from the bestselling author of Rodham, American Wife and Prep.

I don’t often read romantic comedy, or romance novels so I couldn’t immediately think of where to start my chain. And then I remembered that in 2006, before I began my blog, I enjoyed reading The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella. It’s a romantic comedy about Samantha who leaves her job as a high-powered London lawyer and, mistaken for another woman, she finds herself employed as a housekeeper without a clue how to cook or keep house.

One of the characters in The Undomestic Goddess is Nathaniel, a hunky gardener, so my second link is to another gardener in Mr MacGregor by Alan Titchmarsh, another romantic comedy. It’s about Rob MacGregor, who is hired to recapture the declining audience for a daytime gardening programme, and quickly becomes Britain’s latest heartthrob. It’s not as funny as The Undomestic Goddess.

Moving away from romantic comedy my third link is to Deadheads (my review) by Reginald Hill in which a rose garden is the setting for a murder. Life is on the up for Patrick Aldermann: his Great Aunt Florence has collapsed into her rose bed leaving him Rosemont House with its splendid gardens. Or was she murdered?

Using ‘rose’ as my fourth link takes the chain to The Sunne in Splendour (my review) by Sharon Penman historical fiction based on the War of the Roses, the conflict between the houses of York and Lancaster for the throne of England. It tells the story of Richard III from his childhood to his death at Bosworth Field in 1485. 

My fifth link is to another book about Richard III – Alison Weir’s non-fiction about The Princes in the Tower, which examined the available evidence. She concluded that Richard III was responsible for the deaths of his nephews, the young Princes.

Much has been written about Richard, from the time of his death onwards and he remains a controversial figure. My final link is to Josephine Tey’s novel The Daughter of Time, which also investigates Richard’s role in the death of his nephews and his own death at the Battle of Bosworth and concluded that Richard hadn’t murdered his nephews.

My chain includes romantic comedy, crime and historical fiction and non fiction. I’ve read all six books.

Next month (2 September 2023), we’ll start with Wifedom by by Anna Funder.

22 thoughts on “Six Degrees of Separation from Romantic Comedy to The Daughter of Time”

  5. Makes you wonder who did murder the princes doesn’t it? I thought Tey’s conclusions were quite convincing but then I haven’t read a lot else on the subject.

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  6. Great chain. I loved The Sunne in Splendour – one of my favourite historical fiction novels! I enjoyed the Josephine Tey book as well, although I haven’t read the Alison Weir one. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know the truth about the Princes in the Tower but it’s always fascinating to see how many different theories there are.

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  7. Very clever links, Margaret. I have to say, I’m not much of a one for romantic comedies (or romance novels, come to that), although I do respect those that are well written. And your chain includes Hill and Tey – both such talented authors. Nicely done!

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  8. I loved this chain and the inclusion of crime and historical fiction. The only ones that I haven’t read are Romantic Comedy and The Domestic Goddess. I enjoyed all of the others and Sunne in Splendour is one of my all time favourite novels.

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  10. I’m enjoying seeing where romance leads to in all these chains – so far there’s been romance to revenge, then romance to insanity, and now you’ve got romance to murder! I don’t think book bloggers are very romantic… ;)

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  13. LOL so many posts from people who don’t read Romances – including myself – I had to run away from them as quickly as my imagination could carry me.

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