Do You Like Retellings? By Andrea Ezerins

Do You Like Retellings? 

I’ve always loved a fresh take on a classic. Jane Austen—especially Pride and Prejudice—has inspired countless reinterpretations, many of which I’ve happily devoured. Retellings can be loosely “inspired” by the original, or they can follow the narrative arc more closely, with the only changes being the setting’s time and place. For example, Twilight by Stephenie Meyer evokes whispers to the original P&P, while Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld follows the story more closely with the key change the setting of modern day America. 

More recently, Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead captured widespread attention—a powerful, gut-wrenching novel inspired by Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield. Interestingly, both books are the most autobiographical works of their respective authors. 

My love for modern retellings was the driving force when I set out to write my second novel. When the Forest Dreams is a modern adaptation of L. M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle. Montgomery’s best known work is Anne of Green Gables, but she was remarkably prolific, with a body of work that extends well beyond her beloved children’s classics—including this lovely romance.

When I set out to reimagine The Blue Castle, I didn’t fully appreciate the reverence readers hold for Montgomery and the special place she occupies in both literary history and the landscape of childhood memory. I may have hesitated to undertake this project if I had fully grasped that. I loved the book and thought its storyline was perfectly suited for a contemporary retelling, and that inspired me to bring my vision to life.

Here is how I went about it. I mapped the narrative structure of The Blue Castle, preserving its essential elements. 

Those core threads included:

• a stifled, sheltered protagonist misunderstood by her family 
• a frowned-upon love interest harboring secrets 
• a life-altering medical diagnosis 
• an unlikely friendship with a troubled young woman 
• a sense of adventure that echoes the protagonist’s deepest dreams 
• a manufactured marriage or engagement 
• and, ultimately, love, growth, and the bittersweet realization that the long-held dream may have to be relinquished. 

Using this framework, I then shifted everything up 100 years, reimagining each plot point within a fresh, contemporary context. 

Here’s how I modernized the story:

• I reimagined the out-of-wedlock stigma surrounding Valancy’s friend, Cissy, in The Blue Castle as a more contemporary struggle with mental health and addiction, reflected in Emma’s friend, Vee.
• The rigid class expectations of the original became something more internalized and generational—survivor’s guilt rooted in a family history shaped by the Holocaust, and the pressure to not squander a precious life in its wake.
• Valancy’s rebellion against her family by shifting from the Anglican Church to a Baptist church evolved into Emma’s more personal spiritual reckoning—recognizing that the Catholic Church didn’t meet her needs, and finding solace instead in yoga, nature, and self-reflection.
• Emma has more agency than Valancy could realistically have had. Rather than returning to her parents’ home when things fall apart, Emma charts her own course, reflecting the expanded choices available to women today.
• I shifted the narrative perspective. The Blue Castle is told in third person omniscient, and When the Forest Dreams unfolds, it is told in first person, a style that resonates strongly with contemporary romance readers.
• One of my favorite elements from the original is the “book within the book.” In both books, the MMC has a secret identity related to books. Barney, in the original, writes nature books under the pen name John Foster and Jake is the secret author of The Guide to Central Park Birds, written under the same nom de plume, John Foster, In both stories, these books hold special meaning for Emma and Valancy.
• And finally, I added a small Easter egg: I gave the birding professor Emma works for the name Professor Montgomery—a quiet nod to L. M. Montgomery.

The key themes in both The Blue Castle and When the Forest Dreams center on how family and the weight of obligation can limit one’s choices, as well as the transformative power of friendship and the discovery of kindred spirits. And woven through it all is the restorative power of nature, its ability to heal, to ground, and to reconnect us to something larger and more meaningful than ourselves.

Above all, though, these are stories about confronting fear and recognizing how often fear holds us back without us even realizing it. As Alice Walker famously observed, “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”

Both Valancy and Emma come into that power in the wake of a dire medical misdiagnosis. What their journeys reveal is something deeper: that we can choose to live with a little less fear, reaching toward the lives we imagine for ourselves, whether that vision takes the form of a blue castle or a lush green forest. Our dreams are not as distant as they seem; they are already within us, waiting to be claimed. It is this enduring truth of courage, transformation, and the quiet reclamation of one’s own life that continues to resonate with readers today, just as it did in 1926.

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Andrea Ezerins grew up in the small town of Columbia, Connecticut, and earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Connecticut. After spending three decades in the insurance industry, she traded risk assessments for plot twists, publishing her debut novel, Again and Again Back to You, in 2024. She followed it up with her second novel, When the Forest Dreams proving that an empty nest (and a spoiled German shepherd) is the perfect recipe for creativity. Andrea lives in Hebron, Connecticut, with her husband and is the proud mom of two daughters and identical twin sons. When she’s not writing, she’s raising bluebirds and monarch butterflies, running, or flowing through yoga—probably while plotting her next book.

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WHEN THE FOREST DREAMS

For fans of L. M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle, a contemporary retelling of the beloved romance that follows a sheltered young woman’s quest for love in New York City—and her search for a rare and elusive bird in the deep Arkansas forest.  

What if the life you were meant to live was waiting just outside your door?

New York City, 2013. Emma Jablonski’s life is as dry as the day-old bread at her family’s bakery. Living with her parents and grandmother, she clings to the only escape she knows: a recurring dream that feels more real than her waking world. But when Emma’s eyes are open, she’s reminded of what’s out of reach—Jake, the enigmatic boy-next-door.

After a life-changing diagnosis forces her to face her fears, Emma decides it’s time to truly live—before it’s too late. With Jake and his vibrant friend Vee, she dives into a whirlwind of experiences: a fake engagement, dazzling parties, and an obsession with the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird that may not even exist.

But as her daring adventure is coming to an end, Emma begins to embrace a future she never thought possible. Dreams and reality aren’t supposed to mix . . . are they?

A modern retelling of L.M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle, this gentle story of love, resilience, and the beauty of the unknown reminds us to seek joy in the most unexpected places.

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Category: On Writing