Heaven is the one who grows up backwoods hillbilly poor, has a crush on her (alleged) half-brother, a sexual relationship with her foster father, then ... help me. I remember she moves in with her birth mother's family and sleeps with someone there, but I don't remember whether it's her step-grandfather or what.

Her step-grandfather (who, it turns out, raped and impregnanted her mother so therefore is her bio-grandfather) tried to rape her in the 3rd book Fallen Hearts because she had bleached her hair and looked like her mother. She falls in love with Troy, who she believes to be a non-blood relative but when they learn that she is indeed his biological neice, he drowns himself and she ends up marrying Logan, her sweetheart from back in the hills. (But, as in true series-romance, Troy was not dead, comes backin the 3rd book and he and Heaven have an affair that results in her daughter Annie.)

And doesn't she, like Dawn, ultimately marry a boy she was raised as a sister to? Or am I making that up?

Dawn did, but Heaven didn't. Tom, the boy Heaven was raised with as brother and sister dies in the second book, Dark Angel.

(Yes, I'm almost 30 and I still read the series twice a year)

Well, I recall it got a nice mention on NPR, so one assumes it doesn't suck.

I have friends who knew Matt Ruff at Cornell, which is one reason I continue to follow his career. The other reason being that he's really very talented, and needs to write more.

Says the woman still a frustrating 50 pages away from the end of Set This House in Order.

Says the woman still a frustrating 50 pages away from the end of Set This House in Order.

Did you ever get to read the chunk that was missing from your copy?

Nope. If I remember, I'll bring it with me next time I go to Moe's and ask for a trade-in.

It is, however, very good, and I recommend it. Despite the subject matter (the two main characters both have multiple personalities as a result of prolonged and appalling abuse as children), it's not depressing. It's oddly hopeful, very creative, and suspenseful. I'm liking it a lot.

so therefore is her bio-grandfather

Bio-father, I think. Squicky even for Andrews.

And thanks, Aimee. I was conflatiing Tom and Logan, and I had entirely forgotten Troy.

Is Logan the rich boy in the 1st book?

Bio-father, I think. Squicky even for Andrews.

Yes, that's what I meant.

Is Logan the rich boy in the 1st book?

Yup, he's the son of the owner of the drugstore.

I was going to say that, disturbingly, the only thing on the best seller list I've read is The Notebook.

But that's not true, it was Message in a Bottle. I have nothing to say in my defense. I was at the beach with my ex SIL and my brother were there and she gave me the book, so out of obligation I read it.

I'm taking notes on all the smart/interesting things you guys are posting about V.C. Andrews to take to book group on Friday!

I just got two books in the mail today-- Connie Willis' Doomsday Book (which somebody rec'd here) and Michael Chabon's children's book Summerland (hardcover on super sale for $7). WHEE! NEW BOOKS!!!

I guess she [Oprah] does do them still. I thought she had stopped.

She did stop. She recently started again, although differently. I never was involved with the Oprah stuff, although she did provide quite a boost for libraries. Anna Karenina is a wonderful book, though. It's long, but absorbing. It would qualify for a beach book if one were spending the whole summer at the beach. I imagine that the translation would make a difference. I read it for college, but it was one of my "fun" books, unlike much of the other Russian fiction. Brothers Karamazov anyone? Fascinating, but depressing as hell.

12 ANNA KARENINA, by Leo Tolstoy.

13 *THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES, by Sue Monk Kidd.

I've read these, although AK was way back in college (and in translation). I remember AK being suprisingly soap-opera-ish, in a good way. There was a lot of concern with Anna's mental and emotional states, and with her relationships, and once I bought into caring about them the book pretty much flew by.

The Secret Life of Bees is pretty good. It's set in the 1960s, in the US southeast. There is a Perky White Girl who learns the True Meaning of Life through Friendship with People of Color in the Midst of the the Civil Rights Movement. But once I got past the clichés I found the secondary characters interesting and the plot pretty good. There were a couple of places where the author could have taken an easy way out and didn't.