A heart-rending work of historical fiction telling the story of
Marilla Cuthbert, long before Anne came to Green Gables farm.
Marilla Cuthbert was fifty-two years old when the plucky red-headed Anne
Shirley came to live with her and her brother, Matthew, at Green Gables
farm on Prince Edward Island. A seemingly cold and dour spinster, her
heart eventually softens to the loveable orphan girl. But for over a
century readers have wondered, who was Marilla before Anne?
In Louise Michalos's remarkable debut novel, readers are introduced to a
spirited eighteen-year-old Marilla Cuthbert--a girl not unlike Anne
herself--who is desperately in love, and whose whole life is spread
before her. But when a moment of defiance brings life-changing
consequences, a new Marilla begins to take shape, one who would learn to
bear tragedy like a birthright, and loss as an inevitability, and who
would hold steadfast to the secrets that could shatter the lives of
everyone around her.
Weaving its way from Marilla's early life in Avonlea to her
coming-of-age in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and back, Marilla Before Anne
is the story readers of Anne of Green Gables have longed for. Told
with a refreshingly original East Coast voice, this exquisite,
heartbreaking work of historical fiction takes readers on a journey back
in time, to the Green Gables where Marilla Cuthbert lived, loved, and
learned, long before Anne.
