Six Degrees of Separation from Wuthering Heights to The Brontës

Published on by Margaret

This is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite 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.

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 we are starting with Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. This was one of my favourite books when I was a teenager.

My first link was also a favourite book I read as a teenager, Mist Over Pendle by Robert Neill, historical fiction based on the real-life Lancashire witch trials.

My second link is possibly the first historical fiction book I read, The Children of the New Forest by Captain Frederick Marryat, one of the first historical novels written specifically for children and published in 1847, set during the English Civil War.

My third link is The King’s General by Daphne du Maurier, also historical fiction that I read as a teenager. It’s a blend of fact and fiction set in Cornwall also during the Civil War. It was first published in 1946.

The fourth book in my chain was also first published in 1946. It’s Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey, set in a Physical Training College where was a’nasty accident‘. But this is not a conventional crime fiction novel. It’s a psychological study focusing on the characters.

My fifth link is to a biography of Tey – Josephine Tey: a Life by Jennifer Morag Henderson, a book I have yet to read. Josephine Tey was the pen-name of Elizabeth MacKintosh, who was a Golden Age Crime Fiction writer.

My final link is to another biography, The Brontës by Juliet Barker, based on research among all the Brontë manuscripts. This is a biography of the Brontë family – which I should have read a long time ago.

My chain is mainly made up of historical fiction and crime fiction and two biographies. The links are some of my favourite books I read as a child and then a teenager, books published in 1946 and biographies of two of the authors.

My final book links the starting book by Emily Brontë to the last, a biography about her and her family.

Next month (April 4, 2026) we’ll start with Virginia Evans’s epistolary novel, The Correspondent, a book I’ve never heard of before.

19 thoughts on “Six Degrees of Separation from Wuthering Heights to The Brontës”

  2. Well done for beginning and ending with the Brontës! I think The Children of the New Forest was probably the first historical novel I ever read too. I also loved The King’s General, although I didn’t read that one until relatively recently.

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  6. This is a great chain, Margaret! You’ve woven in your own memories of reading, and that makes the chain all the better. And I like your choices, It’s especially effective because, as others have said, it comes full circle!

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  8. Very nice chain, Margaret! Love that you included books that you read when you were younger. I’m reading The Correspondent and discussing it with a book group for May. Looking forward to it!

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