Six Degrees of Separation: I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

How the meme works

Read all the rules here.

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.

Seventeen-year-old Cassandra Mortmain and her family may live in a ramshackle old English castle, but that’s about as romantic as her life gets. While her beautiful older sister, Rose, longs to live in a Jane Austen novel, Cassandra knows that meeting an eligible man to marry isn’t in either of their futures when their home is crumbling and they have to sell their furniture for food. So Cassandra instead strives to hone her writing skills in her journals. Until one day when their new landlords move in, which include two (very handsome) sons, and the lives of the Mortmain sisters change forever. Through Cassandra’s sharply funny, yet poignant, journal entries, she chronicles the great changes that take place within the castle’s walls, and her own first descent into love. By the time she pens her final entry, she has “captured the castle” – and the heart of the reader – in one of literature’s most enchanting novels.

I read I Capture the Castle because of a very, very, early online book club hosted by a blogger I followed back when we didn’t use our own names (Hence my blog having Hopewell instead of Lisa in the title). I think she only hosted one more book club “meeting.” Another book club I’ve only read one book with is Ladies Home Journal. The Widower’s Tale by Julia Glass is, I believe, the only book I’ve read with that club.

Another widower’s tale in which someone once lived in a castle is The Kaiser’s Last Kiss (also titled The Exception) by Alan Judd.

A book with a man whose wife treats him like king (er…Kaiser) and makes their home their castle is Kiss Me in the Coral Lounge by Helen Ellis which also includes the word “kiss” in the title and discusses a few exceptions (to bring in the alternate title of the last book)

Helen Ellis and her hubby and many of their friends live in New York City (I think Manhattan, but not sure). A group of women friends whose apartments and homes in and out of New York that rivaled castles and in which an exception was made for kissing a man to whom none were married, is the real-life Swans and Truman Capote of Melanie Benjamins novel The Swans of Fifth Avenue.

Another swan-like lady who lived in a New York castle-ish apartment and who was regarded as near royalty, and made remaking the little house that came with her first husband’s government job into a place of renown was the subject of The Editor by Steven Rowley.

Another government job that came with an impressive house was the US Embassy in Berlin. The sons of that kissing Kaiser above were among the castle-dwellers invited to dinner and other functions here. (The Editor’s first husband visited this city at this time, too, for a further tie). In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson (nonfiction). (My review was lost on my old blog).

Why not join in the Six Degrees fun next month when month (November 4, 2023), we’ll start with Western Lane by Chetna Maroo, a novella that is part of the read-along for Novella November 2023 (and it also made the Booker Prize 2023 shortlist!).