Title EDEN’S CHILDREN
Author V.C. Andrews (written by ghostwriter, Andrew Neiderman)
Genre Thriller / Suspense
Publisher Gallery Books
Book Blurb
Mother doesn’t always know best in this atmospheric and twisty novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Flowers in the Attic series and Landry series—now popular Lifetime movies. When former teacher Paula Eden adopts Faith and Trevor, she is astounded by their natural intelligence and decides to homeschool them to nurture their brilliance. But as the years go on, Faith and Trevor itch for more independence. When Faith sets her sights on a handsome young man visiting from out of town, Paula grows increasingly desperate to preserve her small family and her plans for the children to carry on her legacy. Luckily, she has a cohort in loyal Trevor, who will do anything to please his mother, even at the risk of hurting his sister and potentially changing their lives forever.
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EXCERPT FROM PROLOGUE:
In my dream Trevor and I were running in opposite directions, but not deliberately. Panic had sent us fleeing, flying off like pieces of the earth thrust into outer space and not drawn toward anything specific. The shadows and whispers that were always there, but easily forgotten or ignored, had grown darker and louder all around us, even before I confronted the ugly truths. Whether I had imagined it or not, the shadows followed us; they were there when we awoke in the morning, and they leaked in under our closed doors and windows when we went to sleep. We were haunted, but pressed our eyes closed tightly and willed them not to be real. Eventually, in my dream, we found ourselves curled up in corners of the old house, hovering, alone.
But for me there was never any sanctuary in the old shadows that had been there for decades. They couldn’t be ignored. “No one ever thinks,” Mama once said, “that the shadows in a house are as much a part of it as the furniture. The sun and the moon cast them through the windows the same way, always.”
These shadows were thin and weak and sometimes looked like they were shimmering, as if the house itself was trembling. As Mama wished, I had come to believe this house was alive.
It spoke to us in so many ways. It had tried not to give up a tragic secret. I knew that it eventually would be telling me how sorry it was. Never once during its construction, its birth from rich, fresh, natural-smelling lumber, did it dream of becoming a shelter for something so ugly. Like someone despondent and depressed, it would have welcomed an all-consuming fire, suicide. But perhaps even that wouldn’t be satisfactory. Its ashes would still reek of sin.
To be sure, long before all this, both Trevor and I had night- mares, just like anyone else our age who had gone through what we had gone through, listening to the cries of other children, smaller and bigger, younger and older, haunted by the same fear of not being loved, I imagine. Maybe Trevor had more of them than I did. He really never willingly admitted to them. I suspected he had them because when we were little, I heard his whimpering, even his crying out for his mother. He remembered his far more than I remembered mine. For years, the bad dreams were mostly born from our pasts. Trevor was obviously left alone a lot. He hated that, even at the foster home. Eventually, my childhood nightmares and most of his were easily smothered and forgotten after the morning sun had burned them away. However, when its time had come, one particular nightmare began in Mama’s house. It began as what I first thought was an illusion, the mysterious cries. I could call it a hallucination, even though I could touch it and remember the feel of it on my fingertips.
All buy links can be found at the S&S product page:
Giveaway: I’m one of the authors participating in the Spooky Halloween Bookish Giveaway and you can win a print copy of Eden’s Child by V.C. Andrews and Andrew Neiderman (US/Canada).
Runs October 1 - 31 and is open internationally for many prizes. Winners will be drawn on November 1, 2022.
Author Biography:
One of the most popular authors of all time, V.C. Andrews has been a bestselling phenomenon since the publication of Flowers in the Attic, first in the renowned Dollanganger family series, which includes Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and Garden of Shadows. The family saga continues with Christopher’s Diary: Secrets of Foxworth, Christopher’s Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger, and Secret Brother, as well as Beneath the Attic, Out of the Attic, and Shadows of Foxworth as part of the fortieth anniversary celebration. There are more than ninety V.C. Andrews novels, which have sold over 107 million copies worldwide and have been translated into twenty-five foreign languages. Andrews’s life story is told in The Woman Beyond the Attic. Join the conversation about the world of V.C. Andrews at Facebook.com/OfficialVCAndrews.