Steph Ho

This is an achingly beautiful novel- from the lovely romance to the descriptions of woodsy Canada. It is also absolutely hilarious (Valancy would be a Twitter superstar), and feels so fresh, which is a testament to how timeless L. M. Montgomery’s writing is. This has quickly become one of my favorite books.

Other notes…
I think I had a bit of a different experience going into the book than most people- I went in completely blind. First, I’m basically an idiot and did not know who L.M. Montgomery was. Second, I ordered this version off Amazon which arrived as a 7 x 9″ skinny paperback with a cover picture that is clearly the Disney Cinderella castle. There was also no blurb or author’s biography, just a title page and then the text. Ummm, was I tricked into ordering some weird contemporary self published book? What is going on?

So it took me a few chapters to figure out 1) it was set around the 1920s and 2) also in Canada. Canada! I basically know nothing of rural Canada so I kind of imagined that it’s fairly similar to the U.S., just colder and with more trees. I was also thrown by some character names- Cissy Gay (really), and her father/town drunk/handyman, Roaring Abel. This led Montgomery describing a sign on their home that read, “A. Gay, Carpenter”.

Anyway, I got over all of that fairly quickly because the amazing prose and story pulled me in. Absolutely lovely read.

Fear is the original sin. Almost all of the evil in the world has its origin in the fact that some one is afraid of something.