Emily of Deep Valley Book

There were two books that sustained me the most during my first year of marriage - a year when everything was changing, I had moved away from everything and everyone I knew, and I was post-school but pre-job or -kids, when my new husband was working long hours and I had huge spaces of time just by myself, wondering what my purpose was. One book was The Blue Castle, by LM Montgomery. The other was this book, Emily of Deep Valley. The questions and struggles Emily endured, the feeling of something ended without something else starting, the need to "muster her wits" and make her own path ... it all provided such encouragement and hope to my lonely soul!

I love that Emily's love story is secondary to her own self-discovery, that it provides a counterpoint to the lessons she is learning throughout her "lost year" but does not overshadow them. I love that Lovelace is not afraid to go against tradition - we are never sure if her heroines are going to end up with their first loves or with somebody new (in Lovelace's world, Anne Shirley and Roy Gardiner might very well have ended up more suitable to each other than Anne and Gilbert, shocking though that may seem!). I love that throughout everything she does is a thread of love and devotion to her grandfather, and never once is it suggested that she is wasting her life by staying with him. And I have to admit, I love all the descriptions of the clothes from back then!

It is an old-fashioned story, but Emily is a heroine for all ages.