If You Like V.C. ANDREWS - Book Recommendations

If like me, you are a fan of Gothic Horror and twisted family sagas, V.C. Andrews was the first proper dive into that genre. But what about authors who tackle similar themes while being thrilling reads. Fear Not reader, I have made a quick list based on the original VCA heroines - Cathy (Flowers in the Attic), Heaven (Heaven) and Audrina (My Sweet Audrina).

If you're looking for female-lead thrillers, page turners, twisted characters and darkly gothic dramas - these are good places to start:

What to read after "Flowers in the Attic"

Such wonderful children. Such a beautiful mother. Such a lovely house. Such endless terror!

It wasn't that she didn't love her children. She did. But there was a fortune at stake—a fortune that would assure their later happiness if she could keep the children a secret from her dying father.

So she and her mother hid her darlings away in an unused attic.

Just for a little while.

But the brutal days swelled into agonizing years. Now Cathy, Chris, and the twins wait in their cramped and helpless world, stirred by adult dreams, adult desires, served a meager sustenance by an angry, superstitious grandmother who knows that the Devil works in dark and devious ways. Sometimes he sends children to do his work—children who—one by one—must be destroyed....

Way upstairs there are four secrets hidden. Blond, beautiful, innocent struggling to stay alive....

1. Call Me Mummy by Tina Baker

Glamorous, beautiful Mummy has everything a woman could want... except for a daughter of her very own. So when she sees Kim—heavily pregnant, glued to her phone and ignoring her eldest child in a busy shop—she does what anyone would do. She takes her. But little foul-mouthed Tonya is not the daughter that Mummy was hoping for.

Meanwhile Kim is demonised by the media as a 'scummy mummy', who deserved to lose Tonya and ought to have her other children taken too. Haunted by memories of her own childhood and refusing to play by the media's rules, she begins to spiral, turning on those who love her.

Though they are worlds apart, Mummy and Kim have more in common than they could possibly imagine. But it is five-year-old Tonya who is caught in the middle...

My Thoughts: You can read my full review, but this is a thrilling which delves into the darker side of motherhood. Baker really takes her characters to some uncomfortable and scary places, which makes the reader constantly question what on earth is going on - There are some strong similarities between Baker's unnamed Mummy character and Andrews' sadistic Corrine, but I'd say Mummy wins hands down on Most Evil Mother EVER award.

2. Silent Child by Sarah A. Denzil

In the summer of 2006, Emma Price watched helplessly as her six-year-old son's red coat was fished out of the River Ouse. It was the tragic story of the year - a little boy, Aiden, wandered away from school during a terrible flood, fell into the river, and drowned. His body was never recovered.

Ten years later, Emma has finally rediscovered the joy in life. She's married, pregnant, and in control again... until Aiden returns.

Too traumatized to speak, he raises endless questions and answers none. Only his body tells the story of his decade-long disappearance. The historic broken bones and injuries cast a mere glimpse into the horrors Aiden has experienced. Aiden never drowned. Aiden was taken.

As Emma attempts to reconnect with her now teenage son, she must unmask the monster who took him away from her. But who, in their tiny village, could be capable of such a crime?

It's Aiden who has the answers, but he cannot tell the unspeakable.

My Thoughts: My first time reading Denzil's Silent Child, I was captivated from the first page. Denzil and Andrews both explore the aftermath of childhood trauma and the struggles of trying to even articulate how being a survivor feels. Downton Abby's Joanne Froggatt narrated the audiobook version beautifully. bringing emotional and powerful performances in every chapter - I read this within two days.

3. Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma

She is pretty and talented - sweet sixteen and never been kissed. He is seventeen; gorgeous and on the brink of a bright future. And now they have fallen in love. But... they are brother and sister.

Seventeen-year-old Lochan and sixteen-year-old Maya have always felt more like friends than siblings. Together they have stepped in for their alcoholic, wayward mother to take care of their three younger siblings. As defacto parents to the little ones, Lochan and Maya have had to grow up fast. And the stress of their lives—and the way they understand each other so completely—has also brought them closer than two siblings would ordinarily be. So close, in fact, that they have fallen in love. Their clandestine romance quickly blooms into deep, desperate love. They know their relationship is wrong and cannot possibly continue. And yet, they cannot stop what feels so incredibly right. As the novel careens toward an explosive and shocking finale, only one thing is certain: a love this devastating has no happy ending.

My Thoughts: Truth be told, I've tried to read this - but I've never got to the end. The book is not only dark, but quite graphic and this intentionally makes the reader uncomfortable at times. Suzuma has a beautiful prose writing style, which instantly reminded me of Andrews and there are clear parallels between Lochan and Maya and Christopher and Cathy. The incestuous themes within an abusive home are dealt with differently by the respective authors - Suzuma goes for hard-hitting reality whereas Andrews has a otherworld tone - and even though Lochan and Maya have more freedom than the Dollangangers, they face the consequences of their taboo relationship with a devastating conclusion.

What to read after "Heaven"

Of all the folks in the mountain shacks, the Casteels were the lowest -- the scum of the hills.

Heaven Leigh Casteel was the prettiest, smartest girl in the backwoods, despite her ragged clothes and dirty face...despite a father meaner than ten vipers...despite her weary stepmother, who worked her like a mule. For her brother Tom and the little ones, Heaven clung to her pride and her hopes. Someday they'd get away and show the world that they were decent, fine and talented -- worthy of love and respect.

Then Heaven's stepmother ran off, and her wicked, greedy father had a scheme -- a vicious scheme that threatened to destroy the precious dream of Heaven and the children forever!

1. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

The first ten lies they tell you in high school.

"Speak up for yourself—we want to know what you have to say."

From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As time passes, she becomes increasingly isolated and practically stops talking altogether. Only her art class offers any solace, and it is through her work on an art project that she is finally able to face what really happened at that terrible party: she was raped by an upperclassman, a guy who still attends Merryweather and is still a threat to her. Her healing process has just begun when she has another violent encounter with him. But this time Melinda fights back, refuses to be silent, and thereby achieves a measure of vindication.

In Laurie Halse Anderson's powerful novel, an utterly believable heroine with a bitterly ironic voice delivers a blow to the hypocritical world of high school. She speaks for many a disenfranchised teenager while demonstrating the importance of speaking up for oneself.

My Thoughts: I read Speak during my final year of university, while I was writing my final dissertation and the screenplay I was writing tackled similar themes. I was apprehensive about writing a film like this, wanting to be respective of survivors while telling a story about love and overcoming trauma - this beautiful book gave me the confidence to keep going and just stay authentic in writing a survivor's story. Anderson literally takes you inside her protagonist's head, who cannot verbalise the trauma she has recently gone through and is mute for almost the entire novel. As well as being beautifully written, this also inspired me to challenge as a writer - how to tell a story without your main character using dialogue. I loved Emily Carroll's graphic novel adaptation, which embraced a Gothic Horror tone in her breath-taking illustrations.

2. You Against Me by Jenny Downham

If someone hurts your sister and you're any kind of man, you seek revenge, right?

If your brother's accused of a terrible crime but says he didn't do it, you defend him, don't you?

When Mikey's sister claims a boy assaulted her, his world begins to fall apart.

When Ellie's brother is charged with the offence, her world begins to unravel.

When Mikey and Ellie meet, two worlds collide.

This is a brave and unflinching novel from the bestselling author of Before I Die. It's a book about loyalty and the choices that come with it. But above all it's a book about love.

My Thoughts: Downham's Romeo & Juliet drama explores social class and consent between two warring families. Even though this is a love story, the conflict between the families is very much at the heart of this book. With strong character moments and a mystery elements - as the reader slowly pieces together what really - this was one of the first books I read as a teenager which dealt with these topics with brutal honesty.

3. Girl A by Abigail Dean

"'Girl A, ' she said. 'The girl who escaped. If anyone was going to make it, it was going to be you.'"

Lex Gracie doesn't want to think about her family. She doesn't want to think about growing up in her parents' House of Horrors. And she doesn't want to think about her identity as Girl A: the girl who escaped, the eldest sister who freed her older brother and four younger siblings. It's been easy enough to avoid her parents--her father never made it out of the House of Horrors he created, and her mother spent the rest of her life behind bars. But when her mother dies in prison and leaves Lex and her siblings the family home, she can't run from her past any longer. Together with her sister, Evie, Lex intends to turn the House of Horrors into a force for good. But first she must come to terms with her siblings - and with the childhood they shared.

What begins as a propulsive tale of escape and survival becomes a gripping psychological family story about the shifting alliances and betrayals of sibling relationships--about the secrets our siblings keep, from themselves and each other. Who have each of these siblings become? How do their memories defy or galvanize Lex's own? As Lex pins each sibling down to agree to her family's final act, she discovers how potent the spell of their shared family mythology is, and who among them remains in its thrall and who has truly broken free.

My Thoughts: This is on my TBR for this months, everything about this reminded me of the Casteels. A dark and intense thriller exploring how a group of siblings survived their "House of Horrors" and how this has shaped them in adulthood. Strike's Holliday Grainger lends her voice to protagonist as she reflects on and reconnects with each of her siblings, all haunted by their parents in their own way.

What to read after "My Sweet Audrina"

V.C. Andrews, author of the phenomenally successful Dollanganger series, has created a fascinating new cast of characters in this haunting story of love and deceit, innocence and betrayal, and the suffocating power of parental love.

Audrina Adare wanted so to be as good as her sister. She knew her father could not love her as he loved her sister. Her sister was so special, so perfect -- and dead.

Now she will come face to face with the dangerous, terrifying secret that everyone knows. Everyone except... My Sweet Audrina.

1. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . .

The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady's maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over their lives--presenting her with a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their marriage from beyond the grave.

My Thoughts: Ben Wheatley's take on Daphne Du Maurier's classic novel in 2020 was my first introduction to Manderley. The book is much more gothic, both heroines are haunted by ghosts of the past as if they're still there and isolated in a house by themselves. Maurier and Andrews delve into imposter syndrome in the family horror, both questioning their own identity when being constantly compared to a literal ghost.

2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Orphaned as a child, Jane has felt an outcast her whole young life. Her courage is tested once again when she arrives at Thornfield Hall, where she has been hired by the brooding, proud Edward Rochester to care for his ward Adèle. Jane finds herself drawn to his troubled yet kind spirit. She falls in love. Hard.

But there is a terrifying secret inside the gloomy, forbidding Thornfield Hall. Is Rochester hiding from Jane? Will Jane be left heartbroken and exiled once again?

My Thoughts: During first lockdown last year, I finally read the masterpiece that is Jane Eyre. With the phenomenal Thandiwe Newton narrating the audiobook, she brought Jane's story to life perfectly. Brontë's roots in Gothic are similar to Andrews' own standalone, tackling feminism in a patriarchal society. These stories deviate drastically however - with one heroine choosing her own fate independently and the other deciding to stay in the unhealthy environment, rather seeking her own uncertain future.

3. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She’s even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. “Jess and Jason,” she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy. And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Now Rachel has a chance to become a part of the lives she’s only watched from afar. Now they’ll see; she’s much more than just the girl on the train...

My Thoughts: A really compelling read, Hawkins did a great job with her debut novel. All three narrators were complex and flawed, their decisions not always meant to be morally correct or right and their mistakes still haunt them. While an alcoholic becomes a key witness in a missing person's case, but proves to be unreliable as she questions her own memories and struggles between reality and fantasy. Rachel and Audrina are both unreliable narrators, with others misleading and even recreating a false reality around them.

Happy Reading Gothic Fans!