If There Be Thorns Author:V.C. Andrews As adults, Cathy and Chris Sheffield still suffer the ugly scars of theier upbringing, living together as man and wife, hoping that the hate-filled evil of their past will never return to harm them. Cathy's two children, 14-year-old Jory and 9-year-old Bart, have never been told about their mother and step-father's past, but it is only a matter... more » of time before the secrets are out. An elderly widow dressed in a gloomy black gown and veil moves next door--a woman who calls friendless Bat her grandson and showers him with gifts and loving attention. But her crafty buttler, John Amos, gives him something dangerous--the private journal kept by the late Malcolm Foxworth, the fanatically hate-filled man responsible for Chris's and Cathy's troubled past. The old man's malicious spirit still lives. As Bart reads the journal, evil page by evil page, he can feel himself grow more and more powerful, even stronger than his older brother.« less
Although it has been some time since I read this series, I remember I couldn't put it down. It keeps you going. My mother even got hooked - she has collected every book by V. C. Andrews, and is waiting for more!
I read this entire series as a young teenager. At the time I found them thrilling but disturbing. I've never read anything else V.C. Andrews has done -- I never felt the urge. But with this series, something about it captivated me and I ended up reading them all. I enjoyed them when I read them (which was a couple of times; a few years inbetween readings), I truly did. But now, they're a little too creepy for me (and I'm a gore and blood horror fan!). I suppose they're marketed for the pre-teen and teenage crowd, but I wouldn't consider them appropriate for a younger, more impressionable age group (incest aside, there are other equally disturbing issues in these books). But for older teens or adults who enjoy very strange and darker type stories, this whole series is for you.
I read this entire series as a young teenager. At the time I found them thrilling but disturbing. I've never read anything else V.C. Andrews has done -- I never felt the urge. But with this series, something about it captivated me and I ended up reading them all. I enjoyed them when I read them (which was a couple of times; a few years inbetween readings), I truly did. But now, they're a little too creepy for me (and I'm a gore and blood horror fan!). I suppose they're marketed for the pre-teen and teenage crowd, but I wouldn't consider them appropriate for a younger, more impressionable age group (incest aside, there are other equally disturbing issues in these books). But for older teens or adults who enjoy very strange and darker type stories, this whole series is for you.
Chris and Cathy made such a loving home for fourteen-year-old Jory -- so handsome, so gentle. And for Bart,who had 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.