Her descriptors, while indicative of the era in their number, are incredibly inventive: A leprous roof, for example.
Think about that for a minute. A writer today might call it a swiss-cheese roof, but how much more effective is leprous? Leprous is visceral and evocative. Why doesn’t anyone write like this anymore? She ignores all kinds of “rules” that govern modern fiction – there are pages lined up that don’t move the story forward, for example – but I’m never disappointed when I pick up The Blue Castle. It is everything a romance should be, minus the sex to make it trashy. You have a heroine who is overlooked and underrated by everyone around her. A roguish hero with some mystery, a secret, a misunderstanding, and a happy ending. Honestly, I’m not reading to save the world here. I just want to be engrossed in a story for a few hours.
Her books aren’t complicated. They aren’t a thousand pages long (I’m looking at you, Ms. Rowling). But before there was Harry Potter, there was Anne of Green Gables, and every girl I grew up with had read all of the books, most of us several times over.
Also: Re-reading L.M. Montgomery is giving me a hint of the origins of my writing habit of layering remembrance upon reminiscing.
