Six Degrees: Sleepy Hollow & Other Deadly Secrets

It’s time for #6degrees. Start at the same place as other wonderful readers, add six books, and see where you end up. Inspired by the Six Degrees of Separation Meme hosted every month at Books are my Favorite and Best.

Last month, I chose Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820) as the last book in my #SixDegrees chain.

^{Ichabod Crane, a schoolteacher, came to Tarry Town in the glen of Sleepy Hollow to ply his trade in educating young minds. He was a gullible and excitable fellow, often so terrified by locals’ stories of ghosts that he would hurry through the woods on his way home, singing to keep from hysterics. Until late one night, he finds that maybe they’re not just stories. What is that dark, menacing figure riding behind him on a horse? And what does it have in its hands? And why wasn’t schoolteacher Crane ever seen in Sleepy Hollow again?}

Sleepy Hollow reminds me of all things slumberous, hidden, forgotten and deathly. Not surprising, since the Halloween Full Moon just turned the corner, eh?

Let’s begin with The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. Detective Philip Marlowe’s attempt to deal with a blackmailer unfortunately leads to murder and mayhem. Things aren’t what they seem, but there’s no waking up the dead to spill their secrets.

That brings me to my second book, Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor. I have rarely come across a more hair-raising book title than of this fantasy book. There is a coming of age battle for young Onyesonwu as she faces the aftermath of genocide. (HBO plans to bring this to TV.)

Those ‘coming of age’ tests are tricky blighters, you know. Take for example, George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss. There’s Maggie Tulliver, who is born bold and adventurous, but who by the end of the book becomes a woman with a grave mien, and those sad, honest eyes. Choosing between love and duty was always going to leave you in a dead stupor.

The fourth book is Deathless by Catherynne Valente. The Russian Revolution is in full blaze, but Koschei the Deathless wants Marya Morevna for his bride. Mythology meets social upheaval, as Marya subverts Koschei’s plans with great aplomb.

Next up is The Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin, a historical forensic thriller. Adelia and her companions travel to England to unravel the mystery of the Cambridge serial murders. Franklin writes with great historical accuracy of the dark middle ages.

And finally, the sixth book is Plenilune by Jennifer Freitag, a portal fantasy set in the middle ages which I reviewed recently. Plenilune is a mysterious alternative universe where an English woman gets caught in the feud between two candidates to the throne. But Margaret is all pluck to the bone, and not to be under-estimated, not even in the face of death.