I haven't read The Ladies of Missalonghi yet, but I found an essay about it which indicated that the parallels with The Blue Castle were accidental rather than conscious. Apparently someone raised the question of plagiarism and the defence was that both stories were drawing upon the same old sources of Cinderella etc. (No one pointed out that The Blue Castle is in the public domain in Aus, but maybe it wasn't back then.)


How you feel about rom-coms is how I feel about romance novels - I like them in theory, but in practice find them very hit-and-miss.