The Blue Castle

Valancy Stirling is twenty-nine, unmarried, and thoroughly bullied by her joyless family. Then a doctor's letter tells her she has one year to live, and overnight the fear that governed her life becomes absurd. Valancy starts saying exactly what she thinks at the dinner table, walks out on respectability, keeps house for the town drunk's dying daughter, and proposes marriage to Barney Snaith, a cheerfully disreputable backwoods loner with a mysterious past.

This is L. M. Montgomery's novel for grown-ups, sharper and funnier than her Anne books, with a heroine whose liberation is a pure joy to witness. The Muskoka lake country is painted so vividly you can smell the pines, and the whole thing glows with one question: what would you do if you stopped being afraid?

At roughly 71,400 words, The Blue Castle runs about 8 hours at 1x narration speed. That figure is an estimate based on a typical narration pace. The exact length depends on the voice and the playback speed you choose.

The Blue Castle is in the public domain, so the complete text is free on Project Gutenberg and LoudReader has the entire Project Gutenberg catalog built in. To listen:

1. Download LoudReader for Mac or iPhone (free, no account).
2. Search for “The Blue Castle” in the built-in catalog and add it to your library.
3. Press play. A natural offline voice reads the book while each word highlights on screen, and your place is saved between sessions.

LoudReader reads with natural offline voices, so the whole book works on a plane or underground. It is fully on-device and private, your library never leaves your device. Listening is unlimited on the free tier.