Six Degrees of Separation – from Wuthering Heights to One Night That Changes Everything

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where it ends up. February’s starting point is Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. The movie is getting terrible reviews: I enjoyed this quote from the Boston Globe:

Emerald Fennell’s overdone adaptation casts Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, Margot Robbie as Cathy, Alison Oliver as Isabella, and Hong Chau as Nelly. If you don’t know who those characters are, you should have paid more attention to your English teacher. The most positive thing I can say about the umpteenth version of this material is that it continues a grand tradition of cinematic literary adaptations. That is, students will fail the “Wuthering Heights” question on their final exam if they watch this instead of reading the book.

The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien - Reading Ireland 2026

O’Brien’s first novel is a coming of age story, with autobiographical elements, about Caithleen Brady and her frenemy, Baba Brennan; two girls from rural Ireland who yearn for something not available at home. Cait’s mother dotes on her but does not protect her or prepare her for life, perhaps because she cannot protect herself from a drunken, spendthrift husband. Cait is conscious that she doesn’t have the possessions her friend does: nice clothes, for example, or a bicycle. Baba always wants more, however, and helps herself in a very unattractive way to what she wants – she takes the flowers Cait picked for their teacher so she can present them, she snatches biscuits from the Bradys’ kitchen although she must know how little the family has, and she ends up with Mrs. Brady’s rings. She is a vivid but unlikable character while Cait is dreamy but annoyingly passive.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Frequently Recommend

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s theme is a freebie, up to each participant. I had just been thinking about some of the books I most enjoy recommending so that seemed like my topic. 

These are all books of which I snap up extra copies for gift giving and general proselytizing:

And Both Were Young by Madeleine L'Engle

Set in the late 1940s, Madeleine L’Engle’s first book for young people is a boarding school story about an American teen, still recovering from the loss of her mother, and how a friendship with a serious French boy with demons of his own brings both solace. Philippa Hunter, known as Flip, had hoped to travel with her artist father – he is working on illustrations for a book about lost children throughout Europe and Asia, including those from WWII. Instead, his possessive girlfriend, Mrs. Jackman, has arranged for her to attend a boarding school in Switzerland.

Two Recent Crime Novels

I've got behind in my reviewing this month but here are two recent books I'd been anticipating; one of which was a disappointment:

No Rest for the Wicked by Rachel Louise Adams (2025)

Dolores Hawthorne left her small town in Wisconsin twenty years ago and built a new life for herself as a forensic pathologist in Los Angeles, although the recent ending of her marriage has left her raw.

The Golden Collar by Elizabeth Cadell

Henry Eliot isn’t sure exactly how he became engaged to the beautiful and autocratic Marly Stonor, daughter of Sir Bertram Stonor, the CEO of the firm where he is an architect. However, his status as future son-in-law doesn’t spare him from being summoned like a schoolboy when Sir Bertram has an assignment. Sir Bertram has been thwarted in his attempts to purchase some coastal property in the Algarve region of Portugal for his daughter (and, eventually, Henry) and he decides to send Henry to represent his interests because Henry speaks Portuguese, having grown up in Brazil.

The Road to Dalton by Shannon Bowring

Set in 1990, The Road to Dalton takes place in a small, economically depressed town north of Bangor, focusing on a few interconnected families.  The most prominent are two married couples, of which the women, Bev and Trudy, have realized they are in love with each other, not their husbands.  Bev’s son Nate is a newlywed with an infant daughter; his wife, Bridget, is the daughter of the most (only) affluent family in town, owners of the lumber company.  And there is Rose, who works as the receptionist at the police station, got pregnant in high school and has two sons and a resentful, abusive boyfriend.  I heard about this trilogy from Susan at Cue Card and was curious enough to request the first book from the library last week.  

Top Ten Tuesday: Books for Armchair Travelers

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is Books for Armchair Travelers.  I am often reminded of a favorite quote that was on the wall in my first grade classroom:

There is no Frigate like a Book to take us Lands away. . .