Anne had dreams of writing a book. She wasn’t always going to be a teacher. But she likes teaching, and she’s good at it. When a parent complains about a book she lent their son, the school wants her to apologize. Anne’s not sorry for sharing the book with the student. When the principal forces her to take the rest of the year off, she’s stunned. No one stood up for her, not even her mentor or her boyfriend. He didn’t seem to think it was that big of a deal. It’s nothing compared to his work as a doctor, where he literally saves lives. Anne is standing on a precipice. Her father just died. Her career has stalled. Her boyfriend is making life changes without consulting her. It’s all just a bit too much. Anne decides to return home to Mackinac Island for the summer to figure out what she wants and where she wants to go. The island she couldn’t wait to flee as a teenager just might hold the answers to her future. When she gets there, she’ll have to confront her past to move into her future. Anne lives boldly and fears she’s “too much” at times. Her heart is open and large. She believes in helping others, which does make her a great teacher. Getting knocked down, she struggles to have faith in herself and her abilities. Luckily, she has a few people to help guide her. It’s hard to hide a secret on a small island, where everyone knows you. ANNE OF A DIFFERENT ISLAND is the perfect read for fans of Anne of Green Gables. This book contains so many Anne Easter Eggs that readers will happily discover.
A woman learns to be the heroine of her own life in this heartfelt novel inspired by Anne of Green Gables by New York Times bestselling author Virginia Kantra.
She believed life could follow a plotline—until the story she was living unraveled.
Anne Gallagher has always lived by the book. Anne of Green Gables, that is. Growing up on Mackinac Island, she saw herself as her namesake: the same impulsive charm, the same wild imagination, even the same red hair (dyed, but still). She followed in Anne Shirley’s fictional footsteps, chasing dreams of teaching and writing, and falling for her very own storybook hero.
But when a string of real-life plot twists—a failing romance, a fight with the administration, and the sudden death of her beloved father—pulls her back to the island she once couldn’t wait to leave, Anne is forced to face a truth no story ever prepared her for. Sometimes, life doesn’t follow a script.
Back in the house she grew up in, Anne must confront her past and the people she left behind, including Joe Miller, the boy who once called her “The Pest.” It’s time to figure out what she wants and rewrite her story to create her own happy ending. Not the book version. The real one.
EXCERPT
“Name?” The barista’s marker poised above the cup.
“Anne. With an e,” I added.
I waited for the answering glimmer that would identify the girl at the airport coffee shop as a kindred spirit. Any sort of recognition, I told myself, would be a sign. A connection, like a message from my dad.
When I was eight, my father brought a copy of Anne of Green Gables home from the library’s used-book sale. I’d been sick for a week, some kind of flu that left me confined to the house, antsy and bored. My easygoing father was useless in the sickroom, my mother said. (Uselessness, in her eyes, was a sin, like greed or envy or forgetting to take off your shoes in the house.) He’d stood there awkwardly in the door of my small room, his big carpenter’s hand wrapped around a battered green paperback with a red-haired girl on the cover, and I’d been overwhelmed with love.
He was not a reader, my dad. But somehow he’d understood (or been told by my English teacher, Mrs. Powell) that I needed Anne Shirley in my life. She became my fictional best friend, my inspiration, reassurance that a strange girl with a big imagination and a bigger mouth could find her place in the world.
Of course, I could never truly be Anne. I wasn’t Canadian, for one thing. Or a natural redhead. Or an orphan. But as soon as I turned eighteen, I had an Anne Shirley quote tattooed on my right arm, paid for with savings from working in my mother’s fudge shop over the summer: Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet.
“Looks like a mistake to me,” my mother said when I’d proudly revealed my new ink.
The barista scrawled on the cup. “Anything else?”
Her voice broke into my memories. I blinked, abruptly recalled to the present. Around us, the terminal rang with footsteps, rattling wheels, and echoing flight announcements bouncing off the cavernous ceiling. “Oh. No. Thanks.”
“Receipt?”
I shook my head wordlessly, stuffing a dollar into the tip jar. I was already running late. Again. I couldn’t miss my connecting flight. I grabbed my drink, glancing at the name written on the side of the cup. E-N-N.
Stupid tears pricked my eyes.
“Not everyone thinks Anne Shirley is a cultural icon,” Chris sometimes pointed out with gentle logic.
But Chris wasn’t here.
A lump lodged in my throat. Neither was Dad. Not here. Ever again. Gone. Another echo in the emptiness of my heart.
I was going home to my father’s funeral. Alone. Without my boyfriend.
© 2003-2026