Browbeaten and stifled by her overbearing family members, Valancy Stirling finds consolation in her imaginary Blue Castle, a place where she leads a fantasy life and where all her dreams come true. After a life-changing medical diagnosis, Valancy rebels against her relatives and sets off on a new life — leading her to discover freedom, friendship, and a love that she had never thought possible. In The Blue Castle (one of a few adult books that she wrote) Lucy Maud Montgomery created a novel that is inspiring, hopeful, and humorous — it will have the reader swinging from sympathy and frustration to laughter and joy. And the glorious descriptions of Muskoka, in which the novel is set, make this truly a book to linger over. And to reread.

Published to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s birth on 30 November 2024, The Blue Castle is set in Muskoka, Ontario and is the only Montgomery novel set outside of Prince Edward Island.

Lucy Maud (L. M.) Montgomery, one of Canada's best-known authors, was born in Prince Edward Island in 1874. Her career spanned fifty years and included twenty-one novels, over five hundred stories, over five hundred poems, many essays and articles, as well as volumes of journals and letters. But it is her first novel, Anne of Green Gables (1908), that is her best-loved work, not only in Canada but all over the world.

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To begin, it’s a book for and about GROWNUPS; a romantic novel, in fact, and the story is delicious! Who could resist a book that begins with these words: “If it had not rained on a certain May morning, Valancy Stirling’s whole life would have been entirely different.” I mustn’t disclose anything here that might spoil your pleasure in discovering the book for yourself, except to say that Valancy — as you will find — has every bit as much spunk as Anne and Emily …

Happy reading, and a heartfelt “Thank you!” to Lucy Maud Montgomery for hours of reading pleasure, as we celebrate her 150th birthday with this special edition of The Blue Castle

- Marilyn Lightstone, 2024