Not lovelier. But a different kind of loveliness. There are so many kinds of loveliness. Valancy, before this year you've spent all your life in ugliness. You know nothing of the beauty of the world. We'll climb mountains--hunt for 192 treasures in the bazaars of Samarcand--search out the magic of east and west--run hand in hand to the rim of the world. I want to show you it all--see it again through your eyes. Girl, there are a million things I want to show you--do with you--say to you. It will take a lifetime. And we must see about that picture by Tierney, after all." Georgiana five years ago. Despite her efforts to make it bloom, no buds had ever appeared on it. Two 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). There’s some HIGHLY DRAMATIC twists and revelations in the final third which should dbe too pat, too perfect but … are actually just right for the story. Needless to say, spoilers ho, Valancy doesn’t die. Barney does fall in love with her. The blue castle—Valancy’s metaphor for her happiness—is real. Gay, Cissy - a twenty-six-year-old woman who is dying of consumption; Abel Gay's daughter. Cissy is described as follows: "a faithful, unobtrusive, sincere, little worker. Everybody liked

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.' Then Valancy is diagnosed with a terminal heart ailment, a fact she keeps secret. At a stroke it frees her from fear of the future and awe of her oppressive family. She has always judged them objectively and secretly laughed at their foibles: but now, by doing what she pleases rather than what is 'expected' of her, and saying aloud what she thinks of them, she causes the Stirlings to conclude that she has suddenly gone 'dippy.' After Cissy dies, Valancy asks Barney to marry her. She confesses that she's dying and Barney agrees to marry her. He takes her to live with him on his island up in the woods, which Valancy refers to as their Blue Castle. Valancy and Barney live over a year together and Valancy's heart problems seem to be decreasing until the point that the condition disappears.Snaith. Sadly, Cissy's baby died when it was a year old, and then Cissy was diagnosed with consumption and 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. 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… The metaphor of the blue castle spoke to me. We all need a blue castle in our lives, a place where we can go to feel true happiness, a retreat away from the disappointments and expectations of the world, and others' judgments and requirements for us. As I read this book, I wondered where my blue castle was. I got the answer to that question, and it made me smile. This book was hilariously funny in some parts, always inspirational, and sometimes pretty sad. It was intensely readable, and I loved Valancy and Barney. I could empathize very deeply with Valancy's situation, and I cheered her on when she stopped being afraid, and decided to be true to herself. Life is too short to be hemmed and caged by others' expectations. If you can't be happy with who you are, then what is the point of living? It took a life-changing event to get Valancy to see this, and I was glad she did.

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 must say, I enjoyed this a lot more than I had expected to. L.M. Montgomery has hit the nail on the head with this wonderful story. It had a little bit of everything I like, and most of all, a vibrant, headstrong individual. It was just a shame that it took a terminal diagnosis to essentially coax that life out of her. My fav part is the conversation between Barney and Valancy, which encapsulates the essence of the novel (with teary and smiling eyes 😊)- The Blue Castle is a novel by the author of Lucy M. Montgomery. The story follows the main character, Valancy Stirling, as she tries to put the pieces of her life together after finding out she only has about one year to live because she has a fatal heart condition. When Valancy, who is 29 years old and is an old maid by societal standards, finds out she is about to die, she starts living her life for the first time. She no longer cares what her mother or other family members say or think about her. Valancy vows to start living and experiencing everything she has always dreamed of having in life, including the man of the her dreams and a home of her own, which she refers to as the Blue Castle. 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.

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The plot actually reminded me of the 2006 film, Last Holiday, starring Queen Latifah, and I couldn't help but wonder if Last Holiday was in some part inspired by THE BLUE CASTLE. THE BLUE CASTLE is about a girl named Valancy who lives with a bitter and miserable family, mired in tradition and utterly consumed with ritual and what's "proper." Stirling at age 20. Valancy believes her mother is "Ashamed every day of her old maid daughter" (Chapter There is no such thing as freedom on earth," he said. "Only different kinds of bondages. And comparative bondages. You think you are free now because you've escaped from a peculiarly unbearable kind of bondage. But are you? You love me—that's a bondage." Oddly enough, this death sentence frees Valancy from her miserable existence. With nothing to lose, she starts sassing her ice-cold mother and relatives, begins wearing "unsuitable" clothing, moves out of the family home, and generally starts doing what she wants to without a thought for propriety. It's lovely to see her bloom and gain confidence, and begin to seek out happiness and love on her own terms. And eventually (I won't spoil the story by going into the hows and whys) she finds a home in a cottage by the lake that reminds her of her beloved Blue Castle. Redfern and John Foster) - a reclusive 35-year-old man who lives on an island in Muskoka. Valancy proposes marriage to him, and he accepts and takes her to his island home and her " Blue