As far as she could look forward it seemed certain to be just the same until she was nothing but a solitary, little withered leaf clinging to a wintry bough. As far as she could look back, life was drab and colourless, with not one single crimson or purple spot anywhere. She was twenty-nine, lonely, undesired, ill-favoured – the only homely girl in a handsome clan, with no past and no future.

Reality pressed on her too hardly, barking at her heels like a maddening little dog. But it also vividly captures Valancy’s sense of captivity and isolation, the smallness of her life and her world: Sharp and funny, it is entertaining and ageless, some ofMontgomery’s best work. The first part of the novel where we are introduced to Valancy, learn of her diagnosis and witness her rebellion is quite wonderful. My actual reaction to it fell somewhere in between. To be completely honest, I opened this half hoping to fall in love with it, half hoping to find it exactly as I remembered. Living with him on his Muskoka island, she finally finds her dream home, theBlueCastle she spent all those long, lonely years building up in her head. From there, Valancy’s acts of rebellion only increase, culminating in her proposing marriage to Barney Snaith, another unconventional local, hoping to grasp at least some happiness in her remaining months. She shocks them all by talking back, standing up for herself, and finally moving out to go and care for an ill neighbour, the daughter of the town drunk who herself had been ostracized for bearing an illegitimate child. Her unexpected death sentence gives Valancy the confidence to rebel against her family. The Blue Castle is the story of twenty-nine year old spinster Valancy Stirling, who has spent her entire life living under her family’s thumb in ruralOntario until, after visiting the doctor after experiencing chest pains, she receives word that she has only a year to live. But with both Eva and Rachel counting themselves as fans, I knew I had to reread it again as an adult and give it another chance. Like everything Montgomery wrote, I’ve read it a few times and mentally classed it somewhere above the endless volumes of repetitive short stories but far, far below the more memorable Anne and Emily books – on par with the forgettable Kilmeny of the Orchard, really. For years, I’ve discarded The Blue Castle as one of Montgomery’s ‘other’ novels. One of the strangest discoveries I’ve made since I started blogging is just how many people adore The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Bound with You by Shaw Montgomery