The Blue Castle

I waited till I was forty-five to read Anne of Green Gables; I wish I'd met
Anne when I was ten, Anne that great mix of passion for life and knowledge about the harshness and inevitability
of disappointment.

So when I heard an online bookgroup member say The Blue Castle was her
favorite book, I couldn't wait to read it.

Valancy Stirling is and isn't Anne. Valancy, at twenty-nine, has had a non-life
life. Bound by the restrictions of her controlling family, Valancy feels ugly and unloved and superfluous. All that
keeps her alive are her dreams of a mythical Blue Castle. Fear keeps her in check until she learns she is dying.
That death sentence, paradoxically, frees her, and changes the course of her life.