Sarah McCoy was intrigued by a paragraph towards the end of Anne of Green Gables where Marilla reveals to Anne that Gilbert's father, John Blythe, had once been her good friend, even her beau. Sarah wondered what had happened and wrote this book to answer that question. She begins the story when Marilla Cuthbert is 13 years old living in a newly built house (the Gables) with her parents and brother Matthew. Their mother is expecting a new baby and her twin sister comes from Ontario to visit in preparation for the new arrival.
The story goes on to tell what Marilla's life might have been like in Avonlea in the mid-1800's. She develops a friendship with Rachel White (Lynde) and John Blythe. She becomes involved with the political uprisings in Canada before Confederation and also in the Underground Railroad. There are deaths in the family and she learns how to deal with those and carry on.
Sarah McCoy isn't Lucy Maud Montgomery and doesn't claim to be. Sometimes I felt her take on Marilla was right on the money but most of the time I just wasn't feeling it. Aside from that, I just found the story to be incredibly boring. It didn't draw me in at all, which is mostly why it took me so long to read it.
I felt the characters to be fairly true to the originals with some small things that didn't sit right with me. I didn't feel like she got Rachel Lynde's character right at all, and there were a few things about Matthew that I didn't agree with either (in Anne he says he had never done any courting, so why is he courting in this book???) . In the original books we can see that Marilla has some political leanings so I feel like her exploring these areas was pretty realistic for her. I liked how the author wove some of the old Avonlea families into this story, it was good to see some familiar names.
If it wasn't for the Green Gables connection I wouldn't have read this book. That was barely enough to keep me going to the end. Maybe if you haven't read Anne of Green Gables 7,000 times you might like this more than I did. I think my expectations were just too high.
