Lucy Maud Montgomery -- Maud to friends -- was the creator of Anne of Green Gables, who wrote 20 novels and hundreds of short stories and poems in her lifetime. It might seem she wrote solely what she knew -- the idyllic and individualistic lives of young ladies in small town Canada. However, Maud was a caregiver for a mentally ill loved one, and waged a lifelong war with her own depression, one that might have taken her own life in the end. Throughout, she took refuge in writing. Whatever storm buffeted, her pen lit fires in the human imagination, not the least of which was her own.In writing Maud could fight. She could rebel against oppressors who were too big to fail, tradition, the repression of women, and the wasted potential of girls. With the slash of a pen, she was more, greater than the roles she was forced to play.

This led to towering scenes of freedom, whimsy, and romance, and to forbidden topics familiar to paranormal Young Adult genre lovers today: girls with psychic powers; elfin children; and young, quirky witches, knit into prose. Valancy, often compared to an elfin changeling, is one such heroine, now yours to embrace.