Valancy Stirling, an inhibited twenty-nine-year-old spinster whose daydreams of the blue castle console her, undergoes a total personality change when a doctor tells her she has no more than one year to live. Oppressed by family and small-town prejudice, her apparently imminent death gives her the courage to assert herself and seek love.

Emily Starr was born with the desire to write. As an orphan living on New Moon Farm, writing helped her face the difficult, lonely times. But now all her friends are going away to high school in nearby Shrewsbury, and her old-fashioned, tyrannical aunt Elizabeth will only let her go if she promises to stop writng! All the same, this is the first step in Emily's climb to success. Once in town, Emily's activities set the Shrewsbury gossips ...

After her father is accused of embezzlement, wealthy Sara Stanley is sent to live with relatives on Prince Edward Island. While there she must cope with her infamous aunts Hetty and Olivia and with the mischievous antics of her jealous cousins. Soon Sara must make a heartwrenching decision whether to stay in Avonlea or return to her father.