Rebellion flamed up in her soul as the dark hours passed by – not because she had no future but because she had no past.” is the "critic of the clan" and has a "biting tongue" (Chapter 10; 53). According to Valancy, Aunt Isabel is "downright and disagreeable as an east wind." She found "something

When Valancy begins to feel some heart pains, she finally has the courage to go a doctor on the sly and find out why she is having these difficulties. His answer via letter causes her to have the courage to decide she will no longer be the passive, dull dog she has been in the past. When she finds out a childhood friend is suffering from TB and has nobody to care for her but her rough, often drunk alcoholic father - Roaring Abel, Valancy decides she will take up the post. With an atmospheric and vibrant writing, it is an engaging, compelling, and an enjoyable read. Apt as a winter-read for the biting yet romantic season, to be accompanied with a hot cup of cocoa in hand! given months to live. Two years later, Cissy was still alive, but no one went to see her (Chapter 14). When Valancy learns that the Gay family doesn't have a housekeeper, she leaves home and moves into their household to care for Cissy. Near the end of her life, Cissy confides in Valancy that theI've felt the need for lighter fare these days. I'll leave reading War and Peace for other times. The Blue Castle sounded rather like a fairy tale and is deemed a "modern classic." That seemed like a good choice. However, I forgot something: Fairy tales are usually filled with sorrowful events. Remember Red Riding Hood's grandmother? Or a witch holding Hansel and Gretel captive to eat them? Valancy is, at twenty-nine, the old maid of the Stirling clan. Her entire life has been spent with her nagging mother, aunt, and gossipy extended family: Victorian and middle class, they actively discourage happiness and treat Valancy like a child, constantly comparing her with her beautiful cousin, Olive, putting her down, and calling her by the baby name "Doss." Her only respites come from daydreaming of her "Blue Castle," and reading the nature books of John Foster. Muskoka to work as a waitress. When she returned home, she was pregnant. Cissy kept the father of her child a secret, but he was rumored to be Barney I've been trying to please other people all my life and failed," she said. "After this I shall please myself. I shall never pretend anything again. I've breathed an atmosphere of fibs and pretences and evasions all my life. What a luxury it will be to tell the truth! I may not be able to do much that I want to do but I won't do another thing that I don't want to do. 'Despair is a free man—hope is a slave.' This is the story of 29-year-old spinster, Valancy Stirling, the old-fashioned and archaic word for single woman being used because those were conservative times where a woman who was single after a certain age was considered to be a loser. As the book said, "She was twenty-nine, lonely, undesired, ill-favoured--the only homely girl in a handsome clan, with no past and no future." Our heroine is single, miserable, and part of a large clan where she sees herself as invisible, has a lot of fear, has no friends, and has never really known happiness in her life. In her sad existence, all she has is her blue castle: her imagination. A pivotal experience in her life (no spoilers), however, changes her life forever.

lived in New York, and he owned an island cottage in the Mistawis, which he arrived at when the ice thawed on the lake. He was considered lonely and eccentric, and he did not flatter those who sat for his portraits. Valancy meets When Valancy secretly sees a doctor about a heart problem and receives a diagnosis of having only a year to live, she stops living in the Blue Castle of her imagination and begins to do and say what she pleases.minister who once tried to reform Roaring Abel (Chapter 14). Probably the same Presbyterian minister that L.M. Montgomery calls Rev. Bradly in Chapter 24. St. Alban's - the Stirling's church where Rev. Dr. Stalling has been the rector for 23 years (Chapter 5). iron-grey hair" and "Rich, fashionable beaded dress." She had electrolysis to remove her moles (Chapter 10; 54). "Valancy had Hello one of my favourite books of all time, recently re-read to get me through what was a fairly stressful week, even for someone an ocean-away from the stress epicentre. that ridiculed Dr. Redfern's remedies (Chapter 42). Later, Barney got honors at McGill University (Chapter 38). He fell in love with Ethel Traverse and

One day, Valancy visits a doctor about one of her "spells" and finds out that she has a fatal heart defect, and only has a year to live. She decides that she doesn't want to spend that last year miserable, and begins telling off her awful relatives and living a scandalous but thoroughly happy life that leaves her relatives reeling, and also, of course, bitterly envious of her daring and contentment. Gay. The Stirling family sends Dr. Stalling to bring Valancy home after she moves into the Gay household, but she overcomes her fear of him and refuses to leave (Chapter 19; 97-101). medicine of the Stirling clan." Valancy is skeptical about whether they really work (Chapter 5; 25). Valancy recently turned 29, and her life is a disappointment. Nothing ever happens to her, she is disrespected, unnoticed by her judgmental family except for the times they make fun of her spinsterhood. a rather stupid little village tin-god" (Chapter 19; 97). Following Valancy's marriage to Barney Snaith, Uncle James cruelly tells her, "you are a shameless

Gladys once removed" according to the strict Stirling calculations. She is a "tall, thin lady who admitted she had a sensitive disposition." She My fav part is the conversation between Barney and Valancy, which encapsulates the essence of the novel (with teary and smiling eyes 😊)-

And 29-year-old Valancy Stirling, the long-suffering grey-mouse and overlooked old-maid of the Clan Stirling has all the reasons in the world to try to escape into a fantasy world of her own. After the meal was over they would sit there and talk for hours--or sit and say nothing, in all the languages of the world, Barney pulling away at his pipe, Valancy dreaming idly and deliciously, gazing at the far-off hills beyond… What goes next is a sweet love and empowerment story, at least as much empowerment as women were expected to achieve in Canada in the 1920s when it was written. not—beauty, popularity, love..." (Chapter 1). Olive has "Rich, golden-brown hair," "large, brilliant blue Snaith. Tom built a house on the island where he lived in the winter; he rented it to people from Toronto in the summer (Chapter 26; 132).

THE BLUE CASTLE

Clayton - a man engaged to Jennie Lloyd, who built a house for her and furnished it in readiness for their marriage (Chapter My heart almost skipped a beat, when I went through the following lines ( These are my favorite lines, I have ever read)- She has no love, no prospects, no hope things will get any better. The only consolation she has is her fantasy place, which she calls The Blue Castle, and occasionally reading the books of John Foster on nature, though even something like reading is frowned upon by her mother, who considers this -as most things in life having anything to do with joy and happiness- a sin.