The Blue Castle

Author: L.M. Montgomery
Publisher: Lindhardt og Ringhof
ISBN: 8728206517
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Book Description
29 and unmarried, gasp! - can you think of anything worse? In 1920s rural Canada, Valancy Stirling is considered "past it" and with a controlling, nagging mother and petty gossips for relatives she feels trapped in the life she has ended up in and when she is diagnosed with a terminal heart condition and given a year to live, it seems she will die without ever experiencing happiness. And so, she rebels. She leaves her family home slamming the door as she does and moves in with her old friend Cissy and starts working as a housekeeper. The independence is intoxicating - as is a growing friendship with local man, Barney Snaith. It looks as though Valancy will have love to warm her heart in her final months. But secrets on both sides threaten to ruin things. The intoxicating story of love and loss is perfect for fans of Elizabeth Gaskell and Jodie Picoult. Lucy Maud (L.M.) Montgomery was a Canadian author best known for a series of children's books beginning with 'Anne of Green Gables'. The books were a huge hit in her lifetime and were recently made in the Netflix series 'Anne with an E'. Montgomery published 20 novels, 530 short stories, 500 poems and 30 essays in her lifetime. Most were set in Canada's smallest province, Prince Edward Island.

The Blue Castle

Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
ISBN: 3988680494
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 210

Book Description
You'll be liable to shy off at that title and say: "No more 'glad' books for me! I'm growing up!" But you'll be making a big mistake if you do. "The Blue Castle" is grown-up, too. And aside from being poignantly human, it is almost poetically beautiful in parts. "Moonlight on birches in a silver thaw. Ragged shadows on windy evenings - torn, twisted, fantastic shadows. Great silences, austere and searching. Jeweled, barbaric hills, and icy-grey twilights, broken by snowsqualls. Doesn't that have twice the color, twice the beauty and rhythm that five sixths of the "verse libre" printed today attains? And the story is fascinating. It's about Valancy Stirling, who for the twenty-nine years of her life has been tied down by fear. Fear of criticism, fear of her mother, fear of her whole "tribe." And when she finds that she has only a year to live she breaks away; defies them all. She goes to the home of Roaring Abel, an old reprobate, and takes care of his daughter, a poor little waif with an illegitimate child. And she proposes marriage to Barney Snaith, a man about whom nothing is known but much is said. Then life starts for Valancy, and for the reader too; mystery, love, humor and pathos. And when you finish it, it leaves you with all the most delightful sensations - the thrill of first love; the splendor of mountains and trees; the feeling that God is very close when the sky is so blue.

Jane of Lantern Hill

Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery
Publisher:
ISBN: 1678019828
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 180

Book Description
Jane of Lantern HillLucy Maud Montgomery Jane of Lantern Hill is a novel by Canadian author L. M. Montgomery. The book was adapted into a 1990 telefilm, Lantern Hill, by Sullivan Films, the producer of the highly popular Anne of Green Gables television miniseries and the television series Road to Avonlea.Montgomery began formulating an idea on May 11, 1936, began writing on August 21, and wrote the last chapter on February 3, 1937. She finished typing up the manuscript on February 25, as she could not hire a typist to do it for her. This novel was dedicated to "JL", her companion cat.The novel was written at Montgomery's house, "Journey's End"; the environment influenced Montgomery's writing to create a

The Blue Cat of Castle Town

Author: Catherine Cate Coblentz
Publisher: Courier Dover Publications
ISBN: 0486815277
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 131

Book Description
"The blue cat is like a knight on a quest. His quest is to find a hearth to fit the song the river taught him and to teach the owner of the hearth to sing that song"--Jacket.

Ladies of Missalonghi

Author: Colleen McCullough
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0380704587
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Book Description
Sometimes fairy toles can come true-even for plain,shy spinsters like Missy Wright. Neither as pretty as cousin Alicianor as domineering as mother Drusilla, she seems doomed to aquiet life of near poverty at Missalonghi, her family's pitifullysmall homestead in Australia's Blue Mountains. But It's a brandnew century-the twentieth-a time for new thoughts and boldnew actions. And Missy Wright is about to set every self-righteous tongue in the town of Byron wagging. Because she hasjust set her sights on a mysterious, mistrusted and unsuspectingstranger ... who just might be Prince-Charming in disguise.

The Ladies of Missalonghi

Author: Colleen McCullough
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN: 9780060157395
Category : Aunts
Languages : en
Pages : 206

Book Description
In the early 1900s after the male members of the family take the family inheritance, Missy Wright, her mother, and her aunt live in poverty until her cousin arrives from Sydney.

The Last Castle

Author: Denise Kiernan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476794065
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 457

Book Description
A New York Times bestseller with an "engaging narrative and array of detail” (The Wall Street Journal), the “intimate and sweeping” (Raleigh News & Observer) untold, true story behind the Biltmore Estate—the largest, grandest private residence in North America, which has seen more than 120 years of history pass by its front door. The story of Biltmore spans World Wars, the Jazz Age, the Depression, and generations of the famous Vanderbilt family, and features a captivating cast of real-life characters including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, Teddy Roosevelt, John Singer Sargent, James Whistler, Henry James, and Edith Wharton. Orphaned at a young age, Edith Stuyvesant Dresser claimed lineage from one of New York’s best known families. She grew up in Newport and Paris, and her engagement and marriage to George Vanderbilt was one of the most watched events of Gilded Age society. But none of this prepared her to be mistress of Biltmore House. Before their marriage, the wealthy and bookish Vanderbilt had dedicated his life to creating a spectacular European-style estate on 125,000 acres of North Carolina wilderness. He summoned the famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to tame the grounds, collaborated with celebrated architect Richard Morris Hunt to build a 175,000-square-foot chateau, filled it with priceless art and antiques, and erected a charming village beyond the gates. Newlywed Edith was now mistress of an estate nearly three times the size of Washington, DC and benefactress of the village and surrounding rural area. When fortunes shifted and changing times threatened her family, her home, and her community, it was up to Edith to save Biltmore—and secure the future of the region and her husband’s legacy. This is the fascinating, “soaring and gorgeous” (Karen Abbott) story of how the largest house in America flourished, faltered, and ultimately endured to this day.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Author: Shirley Jackson
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service Inc
ISBN: 9780822212263
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 86

Book Description
THE STORY: The home of the Blackwoods near a Vermont village is a lonely, ominous abode, and Constance, the young mistress of the place, can't go out of the house without being insulted and stoned by the villagers. They have also composed a nasty s

The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle

Author: Janet Fox
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0147517133
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 401

Book Description
“An enchanting, ghostly story that had me in its grip until the last page."—Jennifer A. Nielsen, New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of The False Prince “Keep calm and carry on.” That’s what Katherine Bateson’s father told her, and that’s what she’s trying to do: when her father goes off to the war, when her mother sends Kat and her brother and sister away from London to escape the incessant bombing, even when the children arrive at Rookskill Castle, an ancient, crumbling manor on the misty Scottish highlands. But it’s hard to keep calm in the strange castle that seems haunted by ghosts or worse. What’s making those terrifying screeches and groans at night? Why do the castle’s walls seem to have a mind of their own? And why do people seem to mysteriously appear and disappear? Kat believes she knows the answer: Lady Eleanor, who rules Rookskill Castle, is harboring a Nazi spy. But when her classmates begin to vanish, one by one, Kat must uncover the truth about what the castle actually harbors—and who Lady Eleanor really is—before it's too late.

The Castle in the Mist

Author: Amy Ephron
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0399546995
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Book Description
In the tradition of Edward Eager and E.L. Konigsburg, a novel about the excitement—and the dangers—of wishing. Tess and her brother, Max, are sent for the summer to their aunt’s sleepy village in the English countryside, where excitement is as rare as a good wifi signal. So when Tess stumbles upon an old brass key that unlocks an ornately carved gate, attached to a strangely invisible wall, she jumps at the chance for adventure. And the world beyond the gate doesn’t disappoint. She finds rose gardens, a maze made of hedges, and a boy named William who is just as lonely as she is. But at William’s castle, strange things begin to happen. Carnival games are paid for in wishes, dreams seem to come alive, and then there's William's eerie warning: Beware of the hawthorn trees. A warning that chills Tess to the bone. In a magical, fantasy world that blurs the line between reality and imagination, readers are left to wonder exactly what they’d wish for if wishes could come true. Perfect for fans of Half Magic and The Secret Garden—and for anyone who's ever wondered if magic is real. For the further adventures of Tess and Max, be sure to check out Amy Ephron's Carnival Magic! Praise for The Castle in the Mist: “Bursting with imagination and warmth, Amy Ephron’s first novel for young people is a magical book in all ways.”—Holly Goldberg Sloan, New York Times bestselling author of Counting by 7s "This beautiful story’s quiet, peaceful tone nicely evokes both the serenity of country life and the haunting magic of the castle, and the emotional heft of Tess and Max’s separation from their parents, as well as their strong bond, keeps the tale firmly grounded in reality. Perfect for middle-graders who love classic fantasy."—Booklist "Rich description of the castle along with an elaborate map at the book's beginning and an illustration at the end enhance the fantasy world....A sequel is suggested; beguiled readers will hope it happens."—Kirkus Reviews "There are scenes...that are transcendent in their beautiful, ethereal descriptions [in this] uplifting novel about family and connection."—BCCB "A slightly darker, updated take on magical realism classics such as Edward Eager’s Half Magic and E. Nesbit’s The Enchanted Castle."—School Library Journal "A near-perfect 9....This book defies gravity because it’s hard to put down!"—Time for Kids, kid reporter "Ephron renders this magical world with such assertive beauty that readers of all ages, who are fortunate enough to believe in the power of magic, will enjoy immersing themselves in the roller-coaster fun of these stories, and come to trust, even if for a short time, that in this 'alternate universe' it is possible for us to come together and 'touch the sky.'"—Jewish Journal