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 an epistolary novel, The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. It was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2026. As it’s a book I’ve not read this is the description from Amazon:

Every morning, Sybil Van Antwerp sits down to write letters – to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to attend a class she desperately wants to take, to her favourite authors to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter.

Because at seventy-three, Sybil has used her correspondence – witty and wise – to make sense of the world. But beyond the page, she has spent the last thirty years keeping the people who love her at arms’ length… Until letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life.

Now, Sybil must send the letter she has been writing for all these years – and find forgiveness within herself in order to move on.

My first link is also an epistolary novel, Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole and also a book I haven’t read yet, one of my TBRs. It’s a novel told in a series of letters written spanning the years from the First World War to the Second between a poet living on Skye and a fan of hers living in Illinois.

My second link is Star Gazing by Linda Gillard, which is also set on Skye. Marianne who has been blind from birth falls in love with Keir, a solitary Highlander and geophysicist, who works on the oil rigs, but who spends his time on shore at his house on Skye. The locations in Star Gazing are just beautiful, described so vividly you could almost be there. Marianne falls in love with Keir and with Skye.

My third link is The Stars Look Down by A J Cronin, a family saga chronicling the lives of a number of interconnected families over a period of thirty years. beginning in 1903 in a North Country mining town. It was first published in 1935. The story starts in 1903 in Sleescale, a fictional town, as its inhabitants experienced social and political upheaval. It ends in 1933. I loved it.

The fourth book in my chain was also first published in 1935. It’s Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck. Tortilla Flat is on the hill high above Monterey, an old city on the coast of California. The book is a collection of stories, some humorous and some tragic. about Danny and his friends. They are paisanos, being a mix of Spanish, Indian, Mexican and assorted Caucasian bloods, living in old wooden houses in the midst of pine trees.

My fifth link is to The Dutch House by Anne Patchett, which has another character called Danny. Danny, Maeve and their mother, Elna and father, Cyril lived in the Dutch House, but when Danny was just three his mother left home. Cyril remarried, and his second wife, Andrea was the epitome of the  wicked stepmother. When their father dies he leaves the Dutch House, to Andrea. 

My final link is to The House on the Strand. Dick Young moves between the present day and the 14th century set in Cornwall – around Par Sands and the Manor of Tywardreath. Dick is staying at Kilmarth (where Du Maurier lived after she was forced to leave Menabilly). He’s the guest of his friend Magnus, a scientist researching the effect of a psychedelic drug that produces hallucinations of time travel. As Dick moves in his mind to the 14th century he physically moves across the present day landscape crossed by roads and railway lines that he cannot see. The difference in the landscape plays a central part in the story.

The links in my chain are epistolary novels, books set on Skye, books with ‘star’ in the titles, books published in 1935, with characters called Danny, and finally books with the word ‘house’ in the titles.

Next month (May 2, 2026) we’ll start with Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy.