If There Be Thorns

Chris and Cathy Made Such a Loving Home...

for fourteen-year-old Jory - so handsome, so gentle. And for Bart, who has such a dazzling imagination for a nine year old.

Then the lights came on in the house next door. Soon the Old Lady in Black was there, watching them, guarded by her strange old butler. Soon she had Bart over for cookies and ice cream and asked him to call her "Grandmother."

And soon Bart's transformation began...

Fed by the hint of terrible things about his mother and father... leading him into shocking acts of violence.

Now while this little boy trembles on the edge of madness, his anguished parents await the climax to a horror that flowered in an attic long ago, a horror whose thorns are still wet with blood, still tipped with fire.

The Dollanganger curse continues.

Setting: California, 1980s
New York Times Bestseller: #1, 16 weeks on list

© 1981 by Virginia Andrews. Published by Pocket Books of New York. 316 pages.

Window -- Jory
Standing -- John Amos
Sitting -- Bart Jr., Corrine

Do you have an opinion about who's in the picture? Write to me.

"Ok here's my onion on all the incorrect illustrations on the V.C. Andrews books, obviously someone who didn't pay very close attention to details of her very descriptive writing drew them. For example, for ITBT they drew John Amos without a mustache and Jory with blonde hair when he was described in the book as having "blue black" hair. So you can't actually depend too much on those pictures to depict any kind of likeness to whatever characters in the book. They are just drawn to look interesting and give you the kind of eery, creepy feeling of the book."
- Lacey at lacerup808@yahoo.com

"I agree with Lacey. Very few of the pictures look right for the stories they are supposed to be about. Who ever drew them, needs to read the books again, and pay attention to the detail in them."
- Ashleelynn23@cs.com