Trivia / Casteel Series

• Baby Name Trend Starter: In the book, characters frequently remark on Heaven's unusual name, which was almost unheard-of as a given name when the book was published in 1985 (and even less so in the 1960s when the book is set). By 1990, census records recorded over 8,000 children named "Heaven," along with its even-more-popular variant Neveah. (This trendy name is actually Older Than They Think, since prior to 1900 it was more common for American Christian parents to give their children explicitly Biblical-themed names and "Heaven" occasionally cropped up amid the baby Jerusalems and little Canaans.)
• Completely Different Title: Some of the international titles for the series are pretty faithful (pretty much all of Dark Angel's titles are pretty accurate for their languages). Some, on the other hand, not so much.
  • Heaven:
    • French: Les enfants des collines (Children of the hills).
    • Finnish: Katkerat jäähyväiset (The Bums will Bid Farewell).
    • German: Dunkle Wasser (Dark Water).
    • Hungarian: Apa és Lánya (Father and Daughter).
    • Norwegian: En plass på jorden (A Place on Earth... one wonders if the publishers had a certain song in their heads).
  • Fallen Hearts:
    • Dutch: De gevallen engel (The fallen angel).
    • Finnish: Kielletty Rakkaus (Forbidden Love).
    • Hungarian: Kárhozottak (Damned).
    • Lithuanian: Apviltos širdys (Deceived Hearts).
  • Gates of Paradise:
    • Czech: Příslib naděje (Promise of Hope).
    • Dutch: Een engel voor het paradijs (An angel for paradise).
    • German: Nacht über Eden (Night over Eden).
  • Web of Dreams:
    • Dutch: De droom van een engel (The dream of an angel).
    • Hungarian: Anya és lánya (Mother and Daughter).
• Outlived Its Creator: Andrews only wrote two of the books in the series. It ended up going for three more after her death.
• Similarly Named Works: No, the second book in the series Dark Angel has nothing to do with show.
• What Could Have Been: Shortly before Dark Angel was published, Pocket Books was negotiating a new contract with V. C. Andrews for her to write a third book in the series, along with a prequel to the Dollanganger series (which became Garden of Shadows). However, Andrews died shortly afterwards and it is unknown how much of Fallen Hearts is her work.
  • Court records indicate that the estate of V.C. Andrews did not allow the ghostwriter to use any unpublished material written by Andrews before she died. However, later interviews with her editor confirm that prior to her death, Andrews managed to complete either a full rough draft of the novel that would have been Fallen Hearts or even a full draft and a large portion of finished material totaling anywhere from a quarter to half of the novel. If and how much that work resembles the ghostwritten published book may never be known, as most of Andrews' final writings still remain in private hands.