The Blue Castle

WARNING: This is going to be long and I'm going to tell the whole ending of this book.

I hardly ever read a book more than once, but The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery is one of my all-time favorites. I just finished reading it for the second time a few minutes ago.

The story is set in Canada in about the 1920's, I think. The main character, Valancy, has lived a dreary twenty-nine years. She was unmarried and likely to remain that way because no man had ever been interested in her. She lived with her strict mother who still treated her like a child. All of her relatives pretty much overlooked her, thinking her completely unimportant. The only two sources of solace that Valancy had were books by her favorite author, John Foster, and her imagination of her dream life in a blue castle.

Then one day Valancy went to see a doctor about some chest pains she'd been having. Toward the end of the appointment, the doctor received a notice that his son had been in an accident. He had to leave immediately, but sent a letter to Valancy stating that she had a fatal heart condition and would probably not live for more than a year. This letter changed Valancy's life. She stopped being afraid of what everyone thought of her and what her relatives would say to her and about her. She started saying what she thought, mostly offending all of her relatives and making everyone think she'd gone crazy. She also decided to stop doing things that she didn't want to do. When her mother told her to take some medicine, Valancy refused because she didn't want to. She didn't tell anyone that she was dying, though, because they would've made a huge "fuss" and made her last year even more miserable than her first twenty-nine.

Her next big decision was to move out of her mother's home to take care of a woman named Cissy who was dying and all alone except for her father, the town "handyman" who had a pretty bad reputation. Valancy found out that Cissy was an incredibly good person, and she thoroughly enjoyed keeping her company until Cissy died.

Not willing to go back to her mother's house, Valancy made a very difficult decision. She asked a man to marry her. This man, Barney, had a very bad reputation because no one really knew anything about him. People had spread all kinds of rumors about him, and Barney made no attempt to defend himself. Valancy didn't believe the rumors, but thought that Barney seemed like a very nice person. Because Valancy told Barney that she was dying, Barney agreed to marry her. When Valancy saw where Barney lived on his own little island, she was ecstatic! His house seemed very similar to the blue castle of her imagination. Barney and Valancy got along very well and lived peacefully for several months.

One night, Barney had gotten caught in a storm out in the woods. Valancy was, of course, very worried about him. He made it back to their "blue castle," and Valancy noticed months later that she didn't have any more chest pains after that.

When they were going into town one day, Valancy's shoe got caught in the train track when a train was coming toward her. Barney got her free just in the "nick of time." This kind of stress should've killed Valancy, considering her heart condition; but it didn't, and this worried Valancy. She went back to the doctor and found out that he had made a mistake. He had sent her the letter meant for someone else who had actually died two months after Valancy received her letter. Valancy did not have a fatal heart condition. She had a not-very-serious heart condition that cleared up by her little "joyful shock" of Barney making it home during that bad storm.

When she got back to her "blue castle," Barney's father was waiting there. Barney had been living under an assumed name because he didn't want anyone to know that he was the son of the millionaire who sold all the hair tonics, "purple pills," and liniments. The father had tracked Barney down after eleven years because Barney had withdrawn money from his old bank account to buy Valancy an expensive pearl necklace for Christmas.

Valancy assumed that Barney would think she had tricked him into marrying her with her "I'm dying" story, so she decided to leave. Wanting to leave a note for him to explain the truth that she had just found out that she wasn't dying and didn't want him to feel obligated to stay married to her, she went into his private work space to get a piece of paper. She had never gone in that room before; but when she did, she found out that her husband had another alias -- John Foster, her favorite author. She left the note and went back to her mother's house.

Her family accepted her back, especially after Valancy told them who Barney really was. She couldn't sleep all night, thinking of how much she loved Barney and how perfect life had been with him. The next day, though, Barney came to get her. He explained to her about his whole life, how he had always been made fun of and left out. He had been engaged after college, but found out that the woman didn't like him at all and was only marrying him for his father's money. That's when he had left home, traveling all over the world to forget about that woman. He had finally settled down on his island, writing his books. He told Valancy that she was the best friend he'd ever had and that he realized on the train tracks that day that he'd rather die than live without her. They decided to travel the world, spend some time with Barney's lonely father, and keep their "blue castle" as their summer home.

I just LOVE books that take a bad situation and turn it around to be great, even better than a dream!

Tomorrow, I'll write about what's going on with me and the kids. I just wanted to share this book first :-)