Rating: 
Summary: It was great!
Review: This was a beautiful love story. Even thoug it was short, it was a wonderful. L.M. Montgomery never ceases to amaze me.The book gave me a happy feeling when I had finished it. I would recommend this book to any L.M. Montgomery fan.
Rating: 
Summary: Simple yet charming
Review: Utterly predictable and in some ways a feminist's nightmare, still I adore this book. Handsome, kind and perfect Eric, exiled in a small country town due to his generousity and compassion to a friend in need, instantly falls under the the spell of lovely, talented and innocent Kilmeny when he comes upon her playing her violin in an abandoned orchard. The lyrical and supremely romantic passage describing this encounter etched the never-seen image into my memory - the blossoming trees, the quality of the light, the textures of Kilmeny's dress, the ethereal music. When Kilmeny runs away in terror, a confused Eric, irrevocably pinned by cupid's arrow, attempts to find out who she is. But Kilmeny has a secret and no one in the town is talking ... Simple and charming, this story is somewhat more lightweight than other Lucy Maud Montgomery novels. Typically, however, the romance plays itself out against a background exploration of the attitudes, the isolationism, and the superstitions of the small rural communities of yesteryear. And of course Montgomery's writing, in my opinion, puts Kilmeny of the Orchard at the top of my list of the most enjoyable romance novels I have ever read.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting
Review: Very good language/description but one can get a bit tired of perfect, poetic beauty and ethereality by the end. The plot is even less probable than usual for Montgomery. Worth reading because it is very well written but not one of Montgomery's best.
Rating:
Summary: Melodramatic but Enjoyable Short Romance
Review: _Kilmeny of the Orchard_ is a very short novel, not one of L. M. Montgomery's better known (and better!) _Anne of Green Gables_ books. This story concerns a young man, Eric Marshall, heir to a well-off shopkeeper, who decides to spend a year after college in a remote Prince Edward Island town. While there, he meets a beautiful young woman, who cannot speak. In all ways she appears perfectly healthy, she can hear just fine, plays an excellent violin, but can't speak. The story is quite melodramatic, as first we are told the story of her mother, who got married to a man who turned out, through no fault of his own, to already be married. Then the young woman, Kilmeny, and Eric fall in love, but Kilmeny feels herself unworthy of marriage, because of her "defect". The resolution involves Kilmeny's step-brother, an Italian orphan, who had also been in love with Kilmeny. This feature reveals one of the more distasteful features of Montgomery's books: her racism (and classism). In the Anne books the racist bits are very minor, involving occasional remarks about the "French". Apparently the French community of New Brunswick (the original Acadians many of whom moved to Louisiana and became the Cajuns (Acadian => 'cadian => Cajun)) were not highly regarded by the Scots and English inhabitants of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. They seem to have been mostly employed as farmhands. In _Kilmeny of the Orchard_ it is made clear from the beginning that Neil, of Southern European birth, somewhat dark-skinned, and an orphan, is a lesser being, prone to emotional outbursts despite having been brought up from birth by Kilmeny's dour Scots Aunt and Uncle. Anyway, though Kilmeny of the Orchard has significant flaws, it is still an involving and enjoyable read.
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