Six Degrees of Separation: Fleishman is in Trouble to Spinning Silver

Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best.  The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links. This time, I have chosen to use all books that I have read, apart from the starting book

This month's starting point is Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodeser-Akner, a book I hadn't heard of until I saw it as being the starting point for this month. Other than reading the blurb, I have no idea what it is about but the name Fleishman reminded me of ....

Flashman and the Dragon by George McDonald Fraser - I only ever read one book of the Flashman series of books which I summarised as being very politically incorrect but fun at the time. I am a little surprised at myself because I have always been such a stickler for reading a series in order but this is the eight book published in the series, but it is much later in the series if you read it chronologically. Which leads me to

The eighth book in the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, Written in my Own Hearts Blood, which features Jamie Alexander Malcolm McKenzie Fraser as the Scottish highlander who finds himself caught up in the Jacobite uprising. I hear that we will finally get to read the next book in the series this year to which I say hoorah!

The Jacobite story is one that author Susanna Kearsley explores in many of her books, but for the purpose of this chain I am choosing to use The Winter Sea, a book that is right up there with my favourite ever books.

The next one is perhaps a tenuous link, but I am choosing to jump to Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan, a fairy tale retelling about selkies which in Scottish mythology are creatures that could change form from seals to humans by shedding their skins. I actually could almost have linked to the third Outlander book as there is mention of the selkie legend but instead I am linking to

Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth, who is a master of taking a fairy tale and retelling it in a historical fiction setting. Bitter Greens was the first book by Kate Forsyth that I read, and it is still my favourite. In this book, she gives us a retelling of the Rapunzel fairy tale set in Renaissance Venice mixed in with tales from the court of the Sun King, Louis XIV

For my final link in the chain, I am sticking with the fairy tale retelling theme. In this case, it is Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik which I listened to on audiobook early last year. This is a retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale, with a good pinch of  Polish (I think) folklore.

From here, there are any number of directions the change could go, but that is my six for this month.

Next month's chain starts with Wolfe Island by Lucy Treloar. I think I know what my first link is, but who knows where it will take me!