Anne's House of Dreams

or

When I was a girl, twenty-five was the first corner. But you look quite young. Redheaded people always do.

Anne's House of Dreams (#5/1917) was originally published as the next chronicle of Anne after Anne of the Island. It picks up at the end of Anne and Gilbert's long engagement. They are married at Green Gables and move that night to a little rented house in Four Winds Harbor, a tiny coastal town sixty miles across the island. Four Winds is adjacent to Glen St. Mary, which is where Anne and Gilbert eventually settle in a home of their own. But for about two years after their marriage, they live in the "House of Dreams," isolated from any town and intimately tied to the ocean. This is one of my three favorite Anne books. It has gorgeous scenery, different (because of the ocean) from the quieter, inland natural landscape of the earlier Anne books. It introduces several characters who are some of my favorites of the series (Cornelia Bryant, Leslie Moore, Captain Jim). It has a spectacular! reveal near the end. And it launches Anne into adulthood, which is exciting to read and richer as I grow older myself. There is more darkness in this book than any of the others until Rilla of Ingleside. And I mean that in a good way.