December 2014 marks the sixth anniversary since I first posted here on blogger. Six years is a very long time, especially when you consider my son is now seven. I really enjoyed the first few years of blogging and reviewing for others until it seemed like all of a sudden there were a huge glut of other bloggers and then bloggers started getting roped into blog tours with rules and obligations and just crappy attitudes from lots of folks who didn't like anything from a five star review to a one star review. Then bloggers turned against bloggers and formed cliques against other cliques and egads- just run for the hills.

Six years of blogging where there were those folks who sorta live kinda close and I'm all for maybe meeting up and hanging out, yo! But I don't drink wine, and I just never was that outgoing person who could just meet someone from the internet. My husband would kill me before the internet person would get a chance to. I'm just not a clubber no matter which connotation you take it.

I have seen online bloggy friends come and go, some with hard feelings and some more just like "I'll like your status update on Facebook but that's it for me".  I can't say I have much of a following here as things really have quieted down on the blog front. I don't remember the last time I got a comment. I think I'll turn commenting off to make myself feel better.

But hey six years! It's been a wild ride for me, as I really have learned a lot of useless information about things from the UK from five hundred years ago. I have also seen people fight about a stupid little historical fact on Facebook/Goodreads. Grow up and get a grip.

I actually stopped wanting to review historical fiction because there would be people out there who would exclaim "You actually liked that when it was fiction and they made that part up about ___ and ____???! How dare you, you evil reader!!"

I went from Tudor Fanatic to Tudor Pee U Icky I hate the Tudors and then I was like, "OH I LOVE the Wars of the Roses!" and then I was like "oh, Regency how Quaint!" and then I was like, "oh look, a Book! Must Buy!" and then "Oh, look a Book! Must Buy!" & "oh look, a Book! Must Buy!" and then "Oh, look a Book! Must Buy!"  and then I acquired my own library, and my own reading room, and my bedroom also looks like a mini library and then I realize geez, I've had some unread ARC's for about five years. (SO sorry, y'all!).. and then I'm like "Medieval?" eh can't really get into it so let's go Christian fiction and hell yeah I loved that for a year and then boom I switched professions and dropped off the face of the earth (or internet) and thousand of books are literally collecting dust as I type.

And then I am like awww I lurrvve my new church! let's sign up to do this! and that! oh okay, if you say so, I guess I'll do that, too! and then my daughter's Girl Scout Troop needs an assistant leader because no one else is left in the list of troop moms to do it, so Crap you Are So Screwed and why the f did you want to be a PTA mom, really??

And now I'm like, "bed... must sleep."

I miss reading. So when I do read - it's when I want to tune everyone out and I don't really give a crap about obtaining an education on Richard III anymore and V.C. Andrews is just magnificent for this exhausted brain.

I read every now and then and sometimes I will post a review if I get a large cup of coffee, pray to the wireless connection gods and try to get blogger to function on the old decrepit laptop.

So yeah. Maybe I'll see you here, but most likely not. It's okay if you're not around here, because I haven't had time to blog surf myself over there and I've missed your blogs-- if you are even posting out there anymore?! I'm out of the loop, man! (Same old story, different decade!)


I just felt like I owed my sad little blog a little Happy Anniversary post, since it was such a good friend to me for quite awhile. Happy Sixth Birthday, Burton Book Review!!!

If you haven't read the prequel then you're totally missing the point!

Garden of Shadows (Dollanganger prequel) by V.C. Andrews
Pocket Books, first published 1987
Personal copy/read for pleasure

Read my other V.C. Andrews reviews

Dollanganger Series:
Flowers in The Attic
Petals on the Wind
If There Be Thorns
Seeds of Yesterday
Garden of Shadows (prequel)


Christopher's Diary: Secrets of Foxworth (October 2014; ghostwritten)
Christopher's Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger (January 2015; ghostwritten)

Before terror flowered in the attic there was a young girl. An innocent, hopeful girl... When young Olivia arrives at Foxworth Hall, she thinks her marriage to handsome Malcolm will bring the joy she has longed for. But in the gloomy mansion filled with festering desires and forbidden passions, a stain of jealous obsession begins to spread—an evil that will threaten her children, two charming boys and one very special, beautiful girl. For within the halls of this cursed house a shocking secret lives. A secret that will taint the Foxworth family for generations to come...

Recent posts have comprised of my V.C. Andrews reviews of both new and old releases, and this one is an old release that I never had the pleasure of reading. I cannot imagine why I didn't read it - perhaps I was turned off by the "prequel" part since I was in my teens and I had a high opinion of myself and what I felt was worthwhile. I have a feeling that I had a misconception that I knew everything there was to know about those kids who looked like Dresden doll angels as they were locked up at the Foxworth Mansion. I probably thought I didn't like that crazy old coot of a Grandma that Olivia was, and didn't want to know anything about her.

Garden of Shadows is all about Olivia Foxworth and her sad life as a wife to Malcolm Foxworth. More crazy weirdo shenanigans await readers with Olivia's story - and there is indeed a very intriguing secret that I had no idea about which pretty much floored me! It all really comes together now and puts everything into perspective as we see what brought Olivia to the point of locking grandchildren up in her attic. And we get to see Corrine as she grows up, and her brothers too. Olivia's character is a lot of matter-of-fact and definitely not a lot of sympathy can be derived, but in some ways the reader at least gets to see why Olivia does what she does.

Remember Joel from Seeds of Yesterday? Only now was I able to connect the dots. Melodramatic twists that even I didn't expect as we learn more about Garland Foxworth and his first wife who was Malcolm's runaway mother, and then we learn more Malcolm's beautiful stepmother Alicia. The Swan Room and the Attic are all key rooms in the story, and Olivia doesn't disappoint with her stern observance over every minor detail and her love for her children. Her cousin John Amos appears as Olivia's butler when she needs him most and later we see where the religious fervor all began, but most importantly: why.

When we find out why, we actually can sorta understand the reason behind the melodramatics that led to locking children in an attic for three years. Sorta. But all that stuff that turns people off from V.C. Andrews books like incest, abuse, making the bible look bad, peeking in on people having sex; this insanity is only for a certain few of us looking for that perfect escape from accounting.

Yes indeed, this is the perfect book for when you're ignoring the kids, the dogs, the husband, but not the cat. You mustn't ignore the cat.