And the stories themselves! I hadn’t known you could write stories like this. These were characters with problems, real (I was young), unimaginable problems, who nevertheless remained talented and optimistic but never treacly or goody-goody, as so many heroines for girls were made to be. Often used as touchstones of misbegotten youthful reading and sidelined as trashy, the Andrews books were more than just the dirty parts to me. These were adult books mean for grown-ups, and if I read them, that made me a grown-up, didn’t it? Sex! Sorry, Mom, it’s probably time you found out. This was melodrama, this was Gothic horror about family secrets, murder, and sex. Andrews died in 1986, and the books subsequently written under her name are by ghostwriter Andrew Neiderman), which I promptly devoured.Īs a child brought up on fantasy and historical fiction, I thought I knew about drama, but I was wrong. Gifted an older cousin’s shelf of books when I was 11 years old, I found myself in possession of several entire series of Andrews’ work (a note: V.C. Andrews’ Dollanganger Saga, we offer a crash course on what’s led us all to this.Įveryone has that book, the one you read just a little too early, the one your parents didn’t know you had or didn’t know the contents of. As Lifetime premieres a new addition to V.C.
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