Sage's Eyes by V.C. Andrews
Simon and Schuster, January 26 2016
Review copy provided by the publisher, thank you.
Burton Book Review Rating: 3 stars

From V.C. Andrews, bestselling author of Flowers in the Attic (the first in a series of Lifetime movie events about the Dollanganger family), comes the tale of a young girl kept under the watchful eye of her adoptive parents, as if they fear who—or what—she’ll become… Sixteen-year-old Sage is a lonely child. Her adoptive parents watch her obsessively, as if studying her for warning signs of…something. And maybe they’re right to—even she can’t make sense of the strange things she sees and hears. She possesses knowledge that other teenagers don’t, that her parents and teachers—no adult—could possibly have. So when Sage finally makes a friend who understands her alarming gift, he becomes her confidant, a precarious link to the truth about who she really is. For Sage and the alluring new boy at school share many things in common. Perhaps, they’ll learn, far too many things.

This newest novel from the ghostwriter for the V.C. Andrews estate has a very intriguing premise. Sage is struggling to fit in high school with her friends, as she seems wise beyond her years. She is gorgeous too, and the boys want her so much that the girls envy her. Her parents treat her in an odd way, something of over-protective gone weird. They act strangely and makes Sage realize that she is different than others even where family is concerned. The bulk of the story is how Sage interacts with others as she slowly discovers new things about herself and her 'abilities'. When the new hot kid comes to town, things get interesting. Finally the ending comes and we figure out why Sage has different abilities, and why her parents have been sheltering her.

While the story was intriguing enough to make me want to find out what happens to Sage, there were times that it was too over-thought. Told in a first person narrative, there was a lot of "I think.. I feel.. I wonder" and not a lot of action going on. The narratives could become cumbersome and this was my biggest complaint of the novel with the next being "really? that's it?" at the finale.

As a whole, it was pretty tame, and suitable for young readers - but die hard fans of V.C. Andrews will likely be disappointed. There is not a lot of a suspense feel, just more like a small mystery waiting to be solved. The Gothic Evil Tones of vintage V.C. Andrews is missing.

another twist to the iconic story

Secret Brother (The Diaries #3) A Concept by V.C. Andrews
Simon and Schuster Pocket Books May 26, 2015
400 pages Paperback $7.99
Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for this review
Burton Book Review Rating: 3.5 stars


Dollanganger Series:
Flowers in The Attic (1979)
Petals on the Wind (1980)
If There Be Thorns (1981)
Seeds of Yesterday (1984)
Garden of Shadows (prequel) (1986) Finished by the ghostwriter

Christopher's Diary: Secrets of Foxworth (October 2014; ghostwritten)
Christopher's Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger (January 2015; ghostwritten)
Secret Brother (May 2015; ghostwritten)
Bittersweet Dreams (October 2015; ghostwritten)


Most readers my age remember reading the family saga that began with Flowers in the Attic which dealt with four young siblings undergoing unimaginable turmoil as they were locked up by their own mother in her rich parent's vast attic. If you haven't read it, you are missing out on something creepy. Something about the wildness and forbidden love kept young readers such as myself going back for more. The books outlined above are all favorite stories of mine. Once we get to the ghostwritten book releases of this decade there is certainly a different feel and taste to the stories. The gothic feel is gone, and more contemporary vibes are evident as the new characters are introduced into the original saga.

Unlike the previous two Diaries releases, Secret Brother does actually attempt to recreate the past by bringing back an original family member from Flowers in The Attic. And since the review is going to be very hard to write without spoiling it for everyone, I will stick to just how I felt about the book as opposed to a summary of the story.

Firstly, I will say that I am glad I read the book. Secondly, it is not for the impatient. I really wanted something more to be going on, something a little more spine tingling, something that would keep me up at night in the way that Flowers in the Attic had done. Instead, the main character Clara Sue (a name that didn't seem suited to the character) is really bratty and selfish - being told in first person narrative doesn't help with this negativity. The plot consists of how Clara Sue engages with her peers as she deals with the loss of her brother, and then how her relationship with the hottest guy on campus develops. In this respect, I would think that perhaps a true young adult reader would appreciate the novel. The other plot point is the tie-in to the original novel, which turned out to be dramatically anti-climatic. There is an excerpt of the next novel, Bittersweet Dreams, where once again we are whisked off to a whole new set of characters which means there doesn't seem to be a conclusion to Secret Brother. Or is there?

For the die-hard V.C. Andrews fan, this is not a form of gold. I have not read book two (Echoes of Dollanganger) as I was not sent it for review, and review books always have to take priority. I was sent book one, however, so I reviewed that here. I did buy book two, and Secret Brother is being called book three. Secret Brother can be read alone (provided you've read Flowers in the Attic) but I get the sense that the first two Diaries novels should be read together as the second installment continues book one.

At $7.99 a pop, you get what you pay for. An intriguing story, a flashback to your youthful past with the original V.C. Andrews novels, and something to look forward to with the other stories. Nothing will ever be written quite like the originals, but there is a reason why the estate continues to allow the ghostwritten stories: they sell. And the Lifetime movies were pretty good, also.

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.

Christopher’s Diary…For those who liked the Dollanganger series…

Christopher’s Diary: Secrets of Foxworth by V.C. Andrews
Pocket Books Paperback; October 28, 2014; ISBN: 9781476790589 $7.99
Review copy provided by the publisher, thank you!
Burton Book Review Rating: 4 stars

Read my other V.C. Andrews reviews

Jealousy, tragedy, survival, and revenge—the discovery of Christopher’s diary in the ruins of Foxworth Hall brings new secrets of the Dollanganger family to light and obsesses a new generation. With Flowers in the Attic and Petals on the Wind both now major Lifetime TV events, this first new addition to the Dollanganger story in nearly thirty years is a timely look at the events in the attic—from teenage Christopher’s point of view.

Christopher Dollanganger was fourteen when he and his younger siblings—Cathy and the twins, Cory and Carrie—were locked away in the attic of Foxworth Hall, prisoners of their mother’s greedy inheritance scheme. For three long years he kept hope alive for the sake of the others. But the shocking truth about how their ordeal affected him was always kept hidden—until now. 

Seventeen-year-old Kristin Masterwood is thrilled when her father’s construction company is hired to inspect the Foxworth property for a prospective buyer. The once grand Southern mansion still sparks legends and half-truths about the four innocent Dollanganger children, even all these decades later. Foxworth holds a special fascination for Kristin, who was too young when her mother died to learn much about her distant blood tie to the notorious family.

Accompanying her dad to the “forbidden territory,” they find a leather-bound book, its yellowed pages filled with the neat script of Christopher Dollanganger himself. Her father grows increasingly uneasy about her reading it, but as she devours the teen’s story page by page, his shattering account of temptation, heartache, courage, and betrayal overtakes Kristin’s every thought. And soon her obsession with the doomed boy crosses a dangerous line…

(Read an excerpt here)

I am one of those age forty-something readers that remember the drama and the wicked horror of the original Flowers in The Attic series when the books had first caused a sensation in the eighties. The Real Virginia Andrews had a way with words that made this once-a-teenager swoon over her next published book. She became such a success that long after her death in 1986 a ghost writer still makes money off of her iconic name. The tone may be the same but it is inevitable that there are only whispers of the passion that the original author of the series had infused into her plots.

I had recently re-read the series which goes as follows: Flowers In the Attic, Petals on The Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and I am now just beginning Garden of Shadows, which is a sort of pre-quel to the series (I also re-read My Sweet Audrina, a stand alone novel that was just as juicy fun as the novels of the Foxworths). These were all titles that were written by the original author, and almost thirty years later Andrew Neiderman brings us the Dollanganger series with the new releases of Christopher's Diary: Secrets of Foxworth, and coming in early 2015, Christopher's Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger.


Christopher's Diary: Secrets of Foxworth is set in a later time long after the children of the attic are gone. We can only revisit them through Christopher's diary as Kristin Masterwood discovers the diary at the ruins of Foxworth Hall. While the synopsis hints at amazing secrets coming to life, we as the reader are not getting anything new. But Kristin is! Apparently, no one really knew what was going on at Foxworth Hall though the reader knew the secrets firsthand through the original books. Yet when Kristin finds the diary, she really did not have a good grip on what really went on behind the doors of Foxworth Hall before the two fires had finally destroyed the ancestral home. All that anyone in the community knew was that crazy Bart went off to bang the bible somewhere else. The rest were all theories and gossip about children in an attic but Kristin would like to know more since she knows her deceased mother was somehow a distant cousin.

The distant relative theme was something that could have come up as major suspenseful, but instead it become more of a mantra getting thrown out there for no effect but to annoy. If we are seriously talking fifty years later, the math doesn't really add up if you think hard about it. The storyline was all about Kristin and her current relationships and how "oh no- I should study to be valedictorian but I can't because Christopher's diary is calling my name." Kristin develops an odd relationship with a boy and the reader gets to hear all about how Kristin feels about her teen life and how her modern life would relate to Christopher's and Cathy's. As a new character to the series, Kristin's traits can turn off readers as she is obsessive but otherwise seemingly perfect; plus the narrative would go off into la-la land while Kristin's dad was talking to her by having a long musing about Christopher's and Cathy's feelings, and then going back into the current event at hand which got a bit old.

The next book will hopefully put a bit of closure on this first installment in the Dollanganger series, as the first ends with a dangling string of darkness and promises new attic moments. While I enjoyed this novel, I am on the fence as to which readers would enjoy it. Some major hardcore fans of V.C. Andrews may not like Niederman's drawn out (and unfinished) plot line, but those who really can't get enough of the soap opera drama that the original story provided should still enjoy the additional fodder related to the Flowers In The Attic family.

Christopher’s Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger is scheduled for release by Pocket Books in January 27, 2015; I look forward to that book to see if the family relationship between Kristin and the original clan can be unveiled.

Pocket Books May 2014 reissue

On the heels of the successful Lifetime TV version of Flowers in the Attic comes the TV movie tie-in edition of Petals On the Wind, the second book in the captivating Dollanganger saga.
Forbidden love comes into full bloom. For three years they were kept hidden in the eaves of Foxworth Hall, their existence all but denied by a mother who schemed to inherit a fortune. For three years their fate was in the hands of their righteous, merciless grandmother. They had to stay strong…but in their hopeless world, Cathy and her brother Christopher discovered blossoming desires that tumbled into a powerful obsession. Now, with their frail sister, Carrie, they have broken free and scraped enough together for three bus tickets and a chance at a new life. The horrors of the attic are behind them…but they will carry its legacy of dark secrets forever.

"Out of the ashes of evil Chris and Cathy made such a loving home for their splendid children..."