Search - Garden of Shadows (Dollanganger, Bk 5)

I think it was a very good opening to the whole series its a back story on the dollangager family. Pretty much where it began.

First book in V. C. Andrews' best selling series.
The wicked curse of the Dollanger family begins in this book. For anyone who has ever read any of this series, this book is a must to read.

Olivia dreamed of a sun-filled love, a happy life. Then she entered Foxworth Hall...
V.C. Andrews' thrilling new novel spins a tale of dreadful secrets and dark, forbidden passions -- of the time before Flowers in the Attic began. Long before terror flowered in the attic, thin, spinsterish Olivia came to Virginia as Malcolm Foxworth's bride. At last, with her tall handsome husband, she would find the joy she had waited for, longed for. But in the gloomy mansion filled with hidden rooms and festering desires, a stain of jealous obsession begins to spread...an evil that will threaten her children, two lovely boys and one very special, beautiful girl. For within one innocent child, a shocking secret lives...a secret that will taint the proud Foxworth name, and haunt all their lives forever!

Without giving away too much of the story, Garden of Shadows follows the story of Olivia, who is brought to Foxworth Hall as the wife of the tyranical Malcolm Foxworth. She is innocent, young and beautiful - the perfect heroine, given the emotional tortures we know Andrews will unleash upon her! Before long, her husband's dark desires turn the innocent young woman's life upside down.

This is definately my favorite series of books written by VC Andrews.

technically, you can read this book as the first book in the series. but belive me, it has so much more meaning if you read it after 'flowers in the attic'. everything you thought you knew? forget it. 'garden of shadows' tells they grandmother's story, and it is NOTHING like you thought it would be. without a doubt THE best, most shocking book in the series.

Olivia dreamed of sun filled love, a happy life. then she entered Foxworth hall..

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.