Six Degrees of Separation – from We Have Always Lived in the Castle to Summer of Fear

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. This month’s starting point is We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. I guess it is a good Halloween tie-in because it is certainly creepy but I used it once before. One of the characters is a Constance, which tempted me, but for my link I am going with the author’s name.

First Degree

White Ghost Summer by Shirley Rousseau Murphy (1967) is a book I received for Christmas many years ago and I always remembered the cover. It’s about a family that finds a Victorian house near the ocean in California. Five talented siblings are energetically enjoying their new home when horse-crazy Melani starts seeing a beautiful white "ghost horse" in the park.

Second Degree

Another book about a busy family is Mrs. Lorimer’s Quiet Summer by Molly Clavering When her four adult children, plus several spouses and offspring, all come to stay, Lucy Lorimer has to take time away from pandering to her husband in order to help resolve her family’s affairs. Author Clavering was a close friend of D.E. Stevenson. My review.

Third Degree

The setting of The Summer Guests by Tess Gerritsen (2025) is Purity, Maine where New England families have come to summer for years. Former spy Maggie and her friends in the Martini Club discover a secret that has been hidden since WWII and clear the name of Maggie’s neighbor in the process. My review.

Fourth Degree

Small town Arkansas seems far removed from WWII until some German POWs are sent to a military camp in Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Green (1973). Twelve-year-old Patty Bergen, who is Jewish, makes friends with one of the soldiers and helps him escape. When her action is discovered, she is judged harshly and her family disowns her. This is a very emotional book that won many awards when it was published and turns up on summer reading lists.

Fifth Degree

Friendship is the link to The Narrowboat Summer by Anne Youngson (2020), in which an improbable group of three women and a dog take a narrowboat through the canals of England. Another pretty cover!  My review.

Sixth Degree

Rachel Bryant is surrounded by friends and family but feels totally isolated when her cousin Julia comes to live in Albuquerque in Summer of Fear by Lois Duncan (1976). She senses that Julia is evil but no one sees it until she can confide in a neighbor, a professor knowledgeable about witchcraft. This is not Duncan’s best but it is definitely scary so links back to the starting point.

So I managed to connect books from two Mistresses of the Macabre: Shirley Jackson and Lois Duncan (one in Vermont and one in New Mexico), with stops in California, England, Maine, Arkansas, and back to England.  Next month (December 6, 2025), Kate says we'll start with a novella called Seascraper by Benjamin Wood.