V.C. Andrews is one of my favorite authors. Her books are a mystery/horror kinda things. But they are very good. A very good site for V.C. fans is the offical site It has a lot of info about her and her up coming books.
History
Virginia Cleo Andrews was born June 6, 1932 in Portsmouth, Virginia. She died December 19, 1986 after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Her novels continue to be released today, fourteen years after her death.
Virginia found her artistic talents after an accident at school. She fell down stairs that left her with severe back injuries. Failed surgical procedures and arthritis forced Virginia to spend most of her life on crutches or in a wheelchair.
At age fifteen, Virginia won a scholarship by writing a parody of Tennyson's Idylls of the King. She graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School and then completed a four-year home study art course.
After her father died in the late 1960's, Virginia and her mother moved from Portsmouth to spend time with her brother in Missouri. A short time later they moved to Apache Junction, Arizona, to be near her other brother. Virginia was able to help support her family with her tremendously successful career as a commercial artist, portrait painter, and as a fashion illustrator.
Her creative spirit was not satisfied by what her work gave her and she sought for creative release through writing. Her first manuscript was an autobiography, which she destroyed in order to keep her life private. Her first novel was titled The Gods of the Green Mountain, a science fiction story. By 1979 she had completed nine novels and twenty short stories--only one was ever published, I Slept With My Uncle On My Wedding Night.
Virginia's first big break came with her 290,000-word manuscript, The Obsessed. The publisher was interested, but told her it needed to be trimmed and lacked spice. In a single day, Virginia completed a new outline, which included "unspeakable things my mother didn't want me to write about."
After a ninety-eight-page revision and a new title, Virginia received an advance of $7,500 for her novel, which hit the bestseller lists in two weeks. Flowers In the Attic was published in 1979 by Pocket Books.
Following Flowers In The Attic came, Petals On The Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and Garden of Shadows - also known as the Dollanganger series. For Petals On The Wind, Virginia received an advance of $35,000. For an incredible nineteen weeks, her second novel remained on the New York Times bestseller list.
My Sweet Audrina is the only novel Virginia wrote that was not part of a series. Published in 1982, it became an instant success topping the sales figures of her previous novels. In 1984, the fourth Dollanganger novel, Seeds of Yesterday, was published and became the best-selling novel of the year. During the same year the City of Norfolk, Virginia, named V. C. Andrews Professional Woman of the Year.
The Casteel series began with Heaven, which hit the number one slot three days after publication in 1986. The American Booksellers Association named V. C. Andrews the Number One Best Selling Author of popular horror and occult paperbacks-beating out Stephen King.
Before her death, Virginia had well over twenty-four million books in print. Her estate was estimated at approximately eight million dollars. She lived to see Flowers In The Attic become a movie, with a small part included for her. She appeared as a maid washing windows.
Two more books were published after Virginia's death, Garden of Shadows and Fallen Hearts. At this time the Andrews family claimed that there were still many manuscripts and the novels would continue to hit the shelves. Years later the family confirmed that they were working closely with a ghostwriter, later revealed as Andrew Neiderman, who still continues to write V.C. Andrews' books. Since her death, four new series have been created, all written under the byline of V. C. Andrews. Two more series are due to be released over the next two years.
