History Creator / VCAndrews

Cleo Virginia Andrews, better known as [[PenName V. C. Andrews]] (June 6, 1923 – December 19, 1986), was an American author best known for ''Literature/FlowersInTheAttic,'' a novel infamous for its portrayal of BrotherSisterIncest. She wrote several sequels and produced other novels up until her death in 1986.

[[OutlivedItsCreator After her death,]] a ghostwriter approved by her family continued to turn out novels under the same pen-name, and is still doing so at the rate of roughly one a year.

Her books are something of a CultClassic. As for the ghostwritten ones, it is widely agreed by V. C. Andrews fans that OnlyTheCreatorDoesItRight, and there is a particular disdain for ghostwriter Andrew Neiderman.

[[/index]]

* ABirthdayNotABreak: There is a VCA-specific trope that's a combination of this with an {{Inver|tedTrope}}sion ofIronicBirthday: It's someone's birthday, and everyone is gathered to celebrate, but then disaster strikes and the person who's birthday it is never arrives to the party.

* DomesticAbuse: Another thing she is famous for is that--while her plots may be soap-opera like--her depictions of abuse and people's reactions to said abuse, are chilling realistic.

* RapeAsDrama: The ''other'' thing her books are infamous for, particularly RapeAsBackstory, as often discovered in the prequel novels.
* ThemeNaming: The book collections have names with a noticeable theme--[[Literature/DollangangerSeries "Flowers", "Petals", "Garden"]] (floral), [[Literature/TheCasteelSeries "Heaven", "Angel", "Paradise"]] (religious), [[Literature/CutlerSeries "Dawn", "Morning", "Midnight"]] (day), [[Literature/LandrySeries "Ruby", "Jewel", "Pearl"]] (gemstones), [[Literature/LoganSeries "Melody", "Symphony", "Song", "Music"]] (musical).

* ThemeNaming: The book collections have names with a noticeable theme--[[Literature/DollangangerSeries "Flowers", "Petals", "Garden"]] (floral), [[Literature/TheCasteelSeries "Heaven", "Angel", "Paradise"]] (religious), [[Literature/CutlerSeries "Dawn", "Morning", "Midnight"]] (day), [[Literature/LandrySeries "Ruby", "Jewel", "Pearl"]] (gemstones), [[Literature/LoganSeries "Melody", "Symphony", "Song", "Music" (musical).

->''"Look, I'm not pretending this woman is Tolstoy. But she's a fantastic storyteller with a world view. What separates the writers who really hit is a world view. Plot is not ultimately enough. ''Flowers'' is not really a plot novel; it is a novel of sensibility, perception and, in a funny way, introspection."''
-->--V. C. Andrews' editor '''Ann Patty'''

Cleo Virginia Andrews, better known as V. C. Andrews (June 6, 1923 – December 19, 1986), was an American author best known for ''Literature/FlowersInTheAttic,'' a novel infamous for its portrayal of BrotherSisterIncest. She wrote several sequels and produced other novels up until her death in 1986.

'''NOTE: Unmarked Spoilers Follow.'''

* ''Gods of Green Mountain'' (unpublished during her lifetime; released as an e-book in 2004)

[[folder: Works ghostwritten under her name]]

!! Other works by V. C. Andrews provide examples of:

* CharacterTitle: Starting with ''Heaven'', the first book in each series was named after its main character, with an added SignificantName bonus, in that all the character's names were nouns that reflected some aspect of their personality or backstory: ''Rain, Dawn, Melody, Ruby,'' etc. This naming conceit lasted spanned several series and lasted nearly two decades.
* AffectionateNickname: 'Magpie' for Madge in ''Cage of Love''.
* AliceAllusion: [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in the Secrets series, where Karen's daughter is named Alice in the hope that "maybe one day [she'll] fall into a Wonderland" and escape her mother's fate.
* BastardBoyfriend:
** Thatcher Eaton in the De Beers series.
** Kane Hill in ''Christopher's Diary.''
** Aaron Podwell in ''Secret Brother.''
%%* BattleaxeNurse
* BedlamHouse: Karen Stoker in the Secrets series and Ian March in the Family Storms series each end up in these.
* BiTheWay: Supposedly, April in the ''Shadows'' series, although it's pretty much implied after she dates Peter that she is now "straight" again, or at least would not consider another relationship with a woman.
* BigScrewedUpFamily: Many of the heroines either start out in one or discover that they have a ''real'' family somewhere that's even more screwed-up than they one they left.
%%* BitchInSheepsClothing
%%* BoardingSchoolOfHorrors
%%* BreakTheCutie
* BrotherSisterIncest: ''Broken Flower''.
* ButICantBePregnant: In the ''Heavenstone'' series, Semantha's very obvious symptoms of pregnancy are passed off by her sister and a corrupt doctor as a "phantom" pregnancy caused by grief over her father's death. When her pregnancy becomes so advanced that the truth can't be denied any longer this is her reaction.
* ButNotTooForeign: Sasha in the Family Storms series is keen to point out she's only ''half'' Asian.
* CainAndAbel: Haylee and Kaylee Fitzgerald in the Mirror series, respectively.
* CampGay: Uncle Perry in the Heavenstone series. The entire [[spoiler:ChildByRape plot]] happens because Perry is evidently not going to have biological children.
* ChildByRape:
** In the De Beers series, Linden was born when Kirby Scott raped his stepdaughter Grace.
** The Heavenstone series features a plot involving a main character being drugged and raped so she can conceive a family heir. [[spoiler:It's unsuccessful - she does get pregnant, but has a girl instead of the planned male heir.]]
** [[spoiler:Elle]] in ''The Unwelcomed Child'', whose mother turns out to have been date raped at a party.
* CreepyTwins: In ''The Mirror Sisters'', Kaylee and Haylee's mother is obsessed with trying to make them identical in every way, to the point of invoking this trope.
%%* DarkSecret
* DeadGuyJunior: In the De Beers series, Willow names her daughter Hannah, meaning "grace", which was the name of Willow's mother.
** In ''House of Secrets'', Dr Davenport names his daughter Samantha after his late first wife.
* DeathByChildbirth: Becomes a plot point in ''Daughter of Darkness'', where Lorelei discovers that [[spoiler:she, and her "adoptive" sisters, are really her father's biological children. He impregnates his daughters, and leaves them to die in childbirth, so that the resulting offspring will grow up to lure new victims to him as Lorelei and her sisters have done.]]
* DeathByOriginStory: William "Willie" Sanders dies barely within the first chapter of ''Secret Brother'' before the readers can even know him. His sister, the protagonist, proceeds to lament endlessly about him to the point of obsession.
* DisappearedDad: In ''House of Secrets'', Fern's father ostensibly left her mother after finding out she was pregnant. Fern spends a lot of the novel looking for him [[spoiler:only to find out it's Dr Davenport, with whom she has lived all her life.]]
%%* DysfunctionJunction
* EarnYourHappyEnding: Most of the stories spend several books with the heroine struggling to find happiness. When she finds it, she's invariably killed off just in time to leave her teenage daughter in the same sorry position her mother started off with.
* EveryoneLooksSexierIfFrench: The reason for the setting of the Forbidden series (where the heroine and her sister are half-French.)
* EvilMatriarch: In the Early Spring series.
* EvilTwin: Haylee in ''The Mirror Sisters''.
* FourTemperamentEnsemble:
** The Shooting Stars has Cinnamon (choleric in her story, melancholic in Falling Stars), Ice (melancholic in her story, choleric in Falling Stars), Rose (sanguine), and Honey (phlegmatic).
* GenderBlenderName: Semantha Heavenstone's family calls her "Sam" (except Cassie).
* GratuitousFrench: Frequently used in ''Forbidden Sister''.
* HollywoodHomely: [[invoked]] In the ''April'' series, several men seem to find April attractive even though she thinks she is enormously overweight.
* HappilyAdopted: In the Family Storms series, Sasha's adoption does ''not'' start well, but becomes this trope by the end as she chooses to stay quite happily with her adoptive mom.
* HeirClubForMen: When Cassie Heavenstone's father dies, she comes up with a plan for [[spoiler:her sister Semantha's love interest to rape Semantha so she will have a child to inherit the family business; believing that Semantha will have a boy.]] Because of this trope, the plan fails when [[spoiler:Semantha's baby is a girl.]]
%%* IncestIsRelative
* IllGirl: Jacqueline in ''Cage of Love'' is an older variation.
* LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek: Lifetime adapted the Dollanganger series (except ''Garden of Shadows'') and ''My Sweet Audrina'' for TV.
%%* LightFeminineAndDarkFeminine
* LittlestCancerPatient: Echo in the Shadows series is a variation of this (deaf, rather than a cancer sufferer).
* ManipulativeBastard: Mayfair Cummings' actions in ''Bittersweet Dreams'' make her seem less like a super genius and more like a borderline sociopath. [[spoiler: After an AlphaBitch posse spread rumors of her possibly being a lesbian predator that her stepmother falls for, she seeks comfort from a teacher who takes advantage of her. He ends up spurning her out of guilt and Mayfair decides to ruin his reputation by accusing him of sexually abusing her stepsister who had written out fantasies of them in her diary. It all soon blows up in her face but not without doing severe damage to a lot of people.]]
* MeaningfulName: ''The Forbidden Sister'' features a character named Roxanne that became a prostitute. Sage in ''Sage's Eyes'' has clairvoyant powers and inherited knowledge of witchcraft.
* MissingMom: Jacqueline Spencer in ''Cage of Love'' died when narrator Madge was only twelve; it broke both Madge and her father.
* MostWritersAreAdults: In the ''Early Spring'' series, the main character is aged between six to eight years old through the course of the books. Even though the storyline is based around her going through precocious puberty, she's still a young child; yet the narrative voice is essentially the same as for the older heroines of other series.
* MurderSuicide: In the ''Mirror'' series, [[spoiler:Haylee]] dies this way when [[spoiler:her boyfriend, who believes she's possesed by evil, drives them both over a cliff.]]
* NewMediaAreEvil: In ''The Mirror Sisters'', [[spoiler:Haylee deliberately begins an online relationship with a creepy, obsessive guy and tells him she's Kaylee, planning for him to kidnap Kaylee (which he does) so Haylee can be the only child in the family. While this is an obviously evil thing to do, Kaylee and their mother seem to both be terrified at the mere idea of Haylee internet dating or meeting people online; and basically would prefer her not to use the internet at all.]]
* NotHimself: In ''April Shadows'', April's father starts to act like a {{jerkass}} to his family for seemingly no reason. [[spoiler:The reason turns out to be that he found out he had terminal cancer and he didn't want his family to feel sad for him when he died. So, he decides to make them hate him. Once his wife and daughters find out, though, they feel sorry for him anyway.]]
* OddNameOut: In the ''Shooting Stars'' series, no one bats an eyelid at girls named "Cinnamon", "Honey" and "Ice" ... yet ''Rose'' is the one who gets teased for having a weird name!
* OffToBoardingSchool:
** In ''Bittersweet Dreams'', [[spoiler:Mayfair]] is sent to a boarding school after [[spoiler:her]] affair with a teacher comes to light. Given the circumstances, there wasn't much other choice.
* OldMaid: Referenced in the De Beers series when Willow's cousin Margaret gets married and chides Willlow about getting too old for marriage (although Willow does marry shortly after this.)
** In ''House of Secrets'', Fern's mother is seen as one, although more out of surprise that someone as beautiful as her never found a husband. She attributes this to her desire to MarryForLove; the man she loved unfortunately being already married [[spoiler:and she didn't love Dr Davenport, the father of both her children.]]
%%* ParentalIncest
* ProtagonistTitle: The first book in nearly every Andrews series is a single noun that doubles as the name of its heroine (''Rain, Dawn, Melody, Willow, Heaven, Ruby''...) later expanded to titles that simply contain the name, like ''April Shadows'' and ''Broken Flower''. Only recently have the books ceased using this trope, in titles like ''Bittersweet Dreams'' and ''The Heavenstone Secrets''.
* RagsToRiches: Delia in the ''Delia'' series (taken in by wealthy relatives) and Sasha in ''Family Storms'' (adopted by a rich woman), among others.
* RaisedByGrandparents: Elle in ''The Unwelcomed Child''.
* RedemptionEqualsDeath: [[spoiler:Grandmother Emma]] in the Early Spring series.
* ReligiousStereotype: The Prescotts in ''The Unwelcomed Child''.
* {{Retcon}}: The ''Christopher's Diary'' series (in which a modern-day girl finds the diary that Christopher kept while in the attic) hugely retcons the events of the Dollanganger series so that [[spoiler: Cory is still alive - Olivia and Corrine did not take him to the hospital themselves, but paid a servant to do it, and Cory was adopted by a wealthy gentleman who had recently lost his grandson.]]
* SecondLove:
** Miguel for Willow in the De Beers series.
** In the Delia series, Adan for Delia [[spoiler:although he dies and she goes back to Ignacio anyway.]]
* SeriesContinuityError: The Dollanganger and Casteel series have this, probably because the prequels were written by a different person.
* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Mayfair of ''Bittersweet Dreams'', in an effort to show her supposed genius IQ.
* SiblingYinYang: April and Brenda in the April series.
* SpellMyNameWithAnS:
** In the Heavenstone series, Semantha Heavenstone.
* SpoiledBrat:
** In the De Beers series, Hannah Eaton is often moping about and complaining about how miserable she is with everyone paying more attention to her baby brother instead of her. She's supposed to be seen as a lonely teenage girl but the writing makes her come across as spoiled and selfish, which wouldn't be so bad if she weren't the main character of the story she's in.
** Clara Sue Sanders, the narrator of ''Secret Brother,'' uses her younger brother's death to excuse her behavior. She antagonizes a poor, sick little boy who has been brought from the hospital to live with her and her grandfather because he's sleeping in her brother's room and using his things. One can feel sorry for her since she was dedicated to Willie but she's nothing more than a spoiled snob insisting that everyone should forever mourn her brother. [[spoiler: Since the little boy is actually Cory Dollanganger, it makes her actions all the more cruel.]]
** In the Mirror series, Haylee and Kaylee receive a lot of expensive gifts from both parents; who use their children to one-up each other, ''and'' they have to buy everything twice since the girls' mother insists they receive exactly the same things. Haylee delights in this and deliberately plays up to it so she can get more stuff.
* SimilarlyNamedWorks: ''Secrets in the Attic,'' surprisingly, is ''not'' connected to ''Flowers in the Attic.'' Nor is ''Broken Flower'' connected to ''Broken Wings,'' nor is ''Daughter of Darkness'' to ''Into the Darkness.'' Nor is ''The Heavenstone Secrets'' connected to ''Heaven,'' ''House of Secrets, Secrets in the Attic,'' or ''Secret Brother'' (none of which, incidentally, are connected to each other, either).
* SurpriseIncest: Almost happens to [[spoiler:Fern and Ryder]] in ''House of Secrets''.
* TeenGenius: Ian in the ''Early Spring'' series and Mayfair in ''Bittersweet Dreams.'' Both of them are heavily alienated by their peers as well as their own families. [[spoiler: They are both also rather petty with Ian killing his and Jordan's governess for taking away his experiments and Mayfair ruining several lives after falsely accusing a teacher of sexually abusing her stepsister because he had sex with her and ignored her after out of guilt.]]
* ThemeTwinNaming:
** Cade and Adrian in the De Beers series.
** Justin and Austin in the "Secrets" series.
** Haylee and Kaylee Blossom Fitzgerald in ''The Mirror Series''. Justified in that their mother deliberately chose the names with a view to treating them as one person and trying to make the twins as identical as possible.
* TokenMinority:
** Ice in the Shooting Stars series.
* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: Adan Bovio in the Delia series.
* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior:
** Plenty of this in the ''Early Spring'' series. Ian is a thirteen-year-old prodigy whose knowledge of sex (as well of other subjects) is far beyond that of many adults; and is fixated on performing "experiments" involving his seven-year-old sister Jordan, who's going through precocious puberty. When their governess tries to punish Ian, he murders her. Jordan herself also has age-inappropriate knowledge of sex (gained from Ian and an older teenager), which shocks the governess, as does Jordan's use of tampons rather than sanitary towels for her premature periods.
** Mayfair Cummings in ''Bittersweet Dreams'' is extremely manipulative and condescending at a young age.
* WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent: Celeste's mother wishes her daughter were more like her dead twin brother...[[spoiler:so she makes Celeste dress as and pretend to be a boy.]]
* WickedStepmother: Julie Cummings of ''Bittersweet Dreams'' is a pampered, adult SpoiledBrat with utter contempt for her stepdaughter and takes delight in going out of her way to make her look bad in front of her father. She does have redeeming qualities in that she loves her daughter and tries to make an effort with Mayfair but the efforts get shot down fast.
** In ''House of Secrets'' Bea Davenport is this for Ryder; and fills the same role for Fern despite not being her real stepmother. [[spoiler:Until the end of the book reveals she ''is'' Fern's stepmother, since Dr Davenport is also Fern's father.]]
* {{Yandere}}: Mayfair Cummings in ''Bittersweet Dreams''.

Cleo Virginia Andrews, better known as V. C. Andrews (June 6, 1923 – December 19, 1986), was an American author best known for ''Literature/FlowersInTheAttic,'' a novel infamous for its portrayal of BrotherSisterIncest. She wrote several sequels and produced other novels up until her death in 1986. [[OutlivedItsCreator After her death,]] a ghostwriter approved by her family continued to turn out novels under the same pen-name, and is still doing so at the rate of roughly one a year.

Newer books published in her name have become [[FranchiseZombie increasingly far fetched over time]] and most of them resemble a SoapOpera or a LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek (which, perhaps not ironically, they have become; starting in 2014, Lifetime adapted the first four books of the Dollanganger Saga, plus ''My Sweet Audrina'', for television, with options to adapt more works in the future), but her international fanbase remains undiminished.

!! Works by V. C. Andrews with their own trope pages include:

* ''Literature/DollangangerSeries'' (1979-1987)
** ''Literature/FlowersInTheAttic''
** ''Literature/PetalsOnTheWind''
** ''Literature/IfThereBeThorns''
** ''Literature/SeedsOfYesterday''
** ''Literature/GardenOfShadows''

** ''Literature/{{Whitefern}}'' (2016)

%%* BigScrewedUpFamily

%%* EarnYourHappyEnding

%%* WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent

%%* DisappearedDad

* HollywoodHomely: InUniverse in the ''April'' series, several men seem to find April attractive even though she thinks she is enormously overweight.

** In ''House of Shadows'' Bea Davenport is this for Ryder and Sam; and fills the same role for Fern, despite not being her real stepmother. [[spoiler:Until the end of the book reveals she ''is'' Fern's stepmother, since Dr Davenport is also Fern's father.]]

%%* MissingMom

* CashCowFranchise: Despite the original V. C. Andrews having died in 1986, romance novels written under her name have continued to be published on roughly a yearly basis since then.

* FollowTheLeader: The ''Kindred'' series (Consisting ''Daughter of Darkness'' and ''Daughter of Light'') and the one-off ''Into the Darkness'' were seen as pretty blatant attempts to ride the post-''{{Literature/Twilight}}'' paranormal romance wave by readers.

* FranchiseZombie: She only wrote 8 books during her life, but a ghostwriter has written over 60 since under her name. To some, the quality of the books declines sharply after the Casteel series, which was the last to be written by Andrews herself. Other readers believe that the books didn't really JumpTheShark (as the Landry series came after the Casteel series but is still one of the most popular series) until after the Logan series.

* NamesTheSame: In a particularly {{JustForFun/egregious}} example, we have Jordan March of the ''Early Spring'' series, and Jordan March of the ''March Family'' series. No, they are not the same character.

* AbusiveParents: The Carsons in the Wildflowers series, with a mother bordering on a younger version of the EvilMatriarch and a father heading toward the DirtyOldMan route.
* AffectionateNickname: "Cat" for Cathy in the Wildflowers series.

* FamilyRelationshipSwitcheroo: In the ''Wildflowers'' series, Cat initially believes that Geraldine and Howard Carson are her birth parents, then her adoptive parents. It turns out that [[spoiler:Geraldine is Cat's half-sister. They share the same birth mother, but Cat was raised as Geraldine's daughter after their mother had a "shameful" extramarital affair with her husband's younger brother (whom Geraldine was in love with), and got pregnant. ''Then'' in "Into the Garden" it turns out Geraldine was adopted too - meaning Cat has no blood relation to Geraldine after all, ''and'' Geraldine had wrongly believed she was in love with her own uncle.]]

** The Wildflowers series Misty (sanguine), Star (choleric), Jade (melancholic), and Cat (phlegmatic).

* FreudianExcuse: Geraldine from the Wildflowers series is given one through letters that Cat finds in the attic.

* NewMediaAreEvil:
** In the ''Wildflowers'' series, Jade gets lured by an internet predator who kidnaps her (though she escapes.)
** In ''The Mirror Sisters'', [[spoiler:Haylee deliberately begins an online relationship with a creepy, obsessive guy and tells him she's Kaylee, planning for him to kidnap Kaylee (which he does) so Haylee can be the only child in the family. While this is an obviously evil thing to do, Kaylee and their mother seem to both be terrified at the mere idea of Haylee internet dating or meeting people online; and basically would prefer her not to use the internet at all.]]

* OddNameOut:
** In the ''Shooting Stars'' series, no one bats an eyelid at girls named "Cinnamon", "Honey" and "Ice" ... yet ''Rose'' is the one who gets teased for having a weird name!
** Inverted in the ''Wildflowers'' series where Misty, Star, and Jade tease each other for having such unusual names and Cathy's relatively normal name gets no comment (she gets called "Cat" later on, but it's just an AffectionateNickname).

* ThereAreNoPolice: In the Wildflowers series, Cat lives with a physically and emotionally abusive mother [[spoiler: who is actually her half-sister.]] You would think that the therapist, Dr. Marlowe, would pull her out of that toxic environment (the other girls certainly call her out on it) but she doesn't. [[spoiler: She does end up fostering Cat after helping to save her from Howard after he kills Geraldine and forces her out of the house.]]

** Star in the Wildflowers series.

** ''Literature/SeedsofYesterday''

Cleo Virginia Andrews, better known as V. C. Andrews (1923–1986), was an American author best known for ''Literature/FlowersInTheAttic,'' a novel infamous for its portrayal of BrotherSisterIncest. She wrote several sequels and produced other novels up until her death in 1986. [[OutlivedItsCreator After her death,]] a ghostwriter approved by her family continued to turn out novels under the same pen-name, and is still doing so at the rate of roughly one a year.

** ''Literature/GardenOfShadows;;

* ''Literature/DollangangerSeries'' (1979-1987, includes ''Literature/FlowersInTheAttic'')

Newer books published in her name have become [[FranchiseZombie increasingly far fetched over time]] and most of them resemble a SoapOpera or a LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek, but her international fanbase remains undiminished.

** In ''The Mirror Sisters'', [[spoiler:Haylee deliberately begins an online relationship with a creepy, obsessive guy and tells him she's Kaylee, planning for him to kidnap Kaylee (which he does) so Haylee can be the only child in the family. While this is an obviously evil thing to do, Kaylee and their mother seem to both be terrified at the idea of Haylee internet dating or meeting people online; and basically would prefer her not to use the internet at all.]]

* CreepyTwins: The ghostwriter has announced plans for a series in which the mother of a pair of twins is obsessed with trying to make them identical in every way, to the point of invoking this trope.

* OldMaid: In the De Beers series, Willow's cousin Margaret worries about being too old for marriage and is envious of Willow marrying young.

%%* RagsToRiches