Fall Wedding Reads for Anne Shirley Fans

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MAGGIE STRICKLAND

 

Lucy Maud Montgomery is most famous for her novel Anne of Green Gables, but she was a prolific writer, working for decades on full-length novels and numerous short stories. Montgomery did not have a happy childhood or a particularly happy marriage; however, her fiction centers around marriage and family life, both the happy and unhappy. There is even an anthology of short stories completely dedicated to marriage, titled At the Altar: Matrimonial Tales. Below are my recommendations for full-length novels that are also cozy fall reads with a good marriage plot.

The Blue Castle

The Blue Castle is one of Montgomery’s few novels written specifically for adults; it tells the story of Valancy Stirling, a 21-year old “old maid” with an overbearing family. When Valancy is diagnosed with a fatal heart condition and given just a year to live, she decides to leave her mother’s home, first to work as housekeeper for a gravely ill childhood friend.

When her friend dies, Valancy then proposes to and marry Barney Snaith, a mysterious man whom her family is convinced is a criminal. Though Barney is not in love with her when they marry, Valancy and Barney spend the rest of Valancy’s last year getting to know each other and enjoying each others’ company during long hours spent in nature.

The beautiful descriptions of the long Canadian winter make this a great cold weather read, but I love this book particularly for Valancy and Barney’s relationship. Valancy does not value the same things as her family—money and class status—and in Barney, she finds a kindred spirit and feels as if she can finally truly be herself. They both love the natural world and Barney teaches her how to see things she never would have noticed on her own.

Though they live in a tiny house and don’t have much in the way of material possessions, they live on an island in the woods where they have vast expanses of nature to explore, and their friendship deepens through their time spent together, which is a lovely reflection on the importance of friendship in marriage, and the culmination of this story has a twist which wonderfully caps off Valancy’s last year.

Anne of Windy Poplars

This fourth novel in the Anne of Green Gables series is not always as highly regarded as the rest of the novels, but don’t let that be a deterrent. It’s set during Anne and Gilbert’s long-distance engagement while she teaches and he is in medical school, so about half of the novel is comprised of her letters to him about her life as a teacher at Summerside High School and boarder at Windy Poplars, a home owned by two elderly widows.

During her three years in Summerside, Anne has a number of clashes with the well-connected and numerous Pringle family, but also makes a number of friends whom she is able to help, either by alleviating their loneliness or helping along engagements and marriages.

I’ve always loved this novel because, despite being engaged, Anne isn’t solely focused on wedding planning or waiting for her life with Gilbert to begin.

While she does make mention of missing him and wanting to be together, she’s also fully present in her life as a teacher and resident of Windy Poplars. She befriends students who are left out, the little girl who lives next door, and various other neighbors, as well as being an active member of the larger community, even though she knows her time there is limited.


Being impatient for marriage while you’re engaged isn’t uncommon, but it’s refreshing to have an engagement story that doesn’t focus completely on that impatience, and as the next novel shows,
their years of working and being separated make that first year of marriage even sweeter.

Mistress Pat

Mistress Pat is the companion novel to Pat of Silver Bush, the story of Patricia (Pat) Gardiner and her childhood growing up at Silver Bush farm on Prince Edward Island. As Mistress Pat begins, Pat is in her twenties and still not willing to contemplate leaving her beloved family home to get married and start her own family.

Years pass, and though Pat considers marrying several times, she can’t find anyone for whom she wants to move away from Silver Bush; eventually, her sisters and brothers all marry, and an emergency forces Pat to reevaluate her insistence on remaining in her childhood home.

Novels that center on happy homes are always cozy, but I also like Mistress Pat for fall because it is an interesting look at marriage and family life; the title comes from the role Pat plays in her family, as her mother is an invalid and so Pat, the second-eldest daughter, has taken on most of the household management since she is unmarried. In one sense, that is why she’s not in a hurry to marry; she loves her home and family and she’s already running a house, but she also hates change, and marriage would mean change.

Pat also can’t imagine marrying someone who doesn’t value what she values, much like Valancy in The Blue Castle, a point that is driven home when her brother Sid, who has been jilted by his fiancée, suddenly marries May Binnie, a pretty girl who makes his life, and the lives of the Gardiner family, much more difficult. Before they’ve been married a year, they begin to fight constantly, and Pat almost gets married herself just to get away from them. Sid has clearly married May based on her looks and doesn’t consider that his marriage will be for life. There are other relatively quick marriages in the novel, like Pat’s sister Rae, but because Rae’s fiancé is good, to quote Anne Shirley, their marriage is happy.

About the Author: Maggie Strickland has loved reading and writing stories since her earliest memory. An English teacher by training and an avid reader by avocation, she now spends her days homemaking, chasing her toddler son, and reading during naptime. She and her husband are originally from the Carolinas, but now make their home in Birmingham, Alabama.

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