Heaven (Casteel Series) [マスマーケット]

When I was fourteen, I picked up this book at my high school library. Since then I've read every book by V.C. Andrews. Heaven is the best book written by her ever, and you should pick this book up asap.

Heaven Leigh Casteel is the oldest of five children that live in a shack in the mountains in West Virginia. Despised by her father, and made a slave by her mother, she is destined to be invisible. Then one cold night, her grandmother Casteel takes her out to the cemetary to show her the tombstone of a 14 year old girl named Angel. Her grandmother explains that this is Heaven's mother, a young girl who had fallen in love with Heaven's father, Luke when she was running away from her rich family in Boston. When Angel died, Luke turned into a monster and treated everyone with disdain. Now Heaven knew why her father wouldn't even look at her, much less show her affection.

When Heaven's stepmother becomes pregnant again and goes through a very difficult pregnancy and gives birth to a stillborn baby, without the support or presence of her husband, Sarah (the stepmother) just up and leaves all the children alone to fend for themselves. For months the children resorted to stealing to feed the two youngest frail children, Our Jane and Keith. During all this grief and responsiblity placed on 14 year old Heaven's shoulders, the only constant in her life is Logan, the only person in the world to ever love her for herself. But then one day their father shows up again to drop a bombshell on them: he's selling all of them to other families. For $500 a piece he first sells Our Jane and Keith. Then Fanny eagerly goes next. Then Tom, Heaven's closest sibling is sold off next, vowing that he would find a way to get them back together again. Suddenly all alone, Heaven is stuck with her evil father and a frail grandpa that done absolutely nothing while Luke sold all of his children. Finally Heaven's day arrived. But she had a choice of two differnt families. She picked the young looking couple with the striking titian haired beauty and the calm, sad looking man.

Never to see the Willies (that's the name of the mountain) again.

When she arrived at the home of Kitty and Cal Dennison, she realized that she made a big mistake choosing them. Kitty was obsessed with cleanliness...and Heaven's father, Luke. Facing years of physical and emotional abuse, Heaven turns to Cal for support and love. Only that support and love turns to an unnatural love of Heaven from Cal. Then Kitty gets sick and they decide to take her to her hometown...the valley where Heaven went to school. Elated that she could see Tom, Fanny, and Logan again, Heaven went in search of them. That's when she found out that Fanny didn't want to see her, Tom was a slave to his "adopted" father, and Logan was still in love with her. She also recieves a letter from her father apologizing and wanting all of his children to move in with him and his new wife. There is also a plane ticket to Boston, where Heaven's mother's family is at. He leaves the decision up to her, and she chooses Boston.

Such a great book!! I can't even begin to describe the pain, joy, and despair that makes this the best book ever written. To me it is better than Flowers in the Attic, with more suffering on the main characters part. Heaven keeps making the wrong decisions that leaves the reader pulling their hair out. When you read this book you feel the emotions of Heaven. Believe me when I say that this is a book (and a series) that you don't want to miss. RUN TO THE BOOKSTORE AND BUY IT NOW!

My mother forbid me to read any V.C. Andrews after the whole Flowers In the Attic epidemic. I was 12 or 13, snuck this home from the library under my winter coat (it was my very first of this author). Twelve years later, after reading anything and everything, I'm reading this book again for the ? time. Yeah, Heaven goes from from 16 to 17 to 16 to 17 every couple pages (anybody ever pick up on that?) but this is one hell of a story line, and the best of any of her series.

Read it, love it, you'll live with it forever.

"Heaven" is the first book in one of my favorite series by V. C. Andrews. It begins in the Willies, a mountain range in West Virginia. This is where Heaven Leigh Casteel has grown up in poverty for the past ten years, along with her four siblings (Tom, Fanny, Keith, and Our Jane), father and stepmother (Luke and Sarah), and grandparents. All nine family members share a pitiful cabin high above the small town of Winnerrow.

One night, Heaven's grandmother takes her to the grave site of her real mother (Leigh VanVoreen, aka "Angel"), who had died shortly after giving birth to her. Leigh has always remained a mystery to Heaven (in fact, Heaven never knew she had a different mother other than Sarah), until her grandmother gives her Leigh's suitcase, which is filled with expensive items from her mother's previous life in Boston.

After that revelation, Heaven vows to never confess her birth right to anyone, especially her siblings, who she wants to keep protected. She has a pretty good relationship with all of them, except for her younger sister, Fanny, who has always been a thorn in her side. Fanny's extremely jealous of her half-sister and basically makes Heaven's life hell. She even tries repeatedly to come between Heaven and her new boyfriend, Logan Stonewall (the son of a well-to-do pharmacist), but without any success.

Even though their life is pretty pathetic so far, Heaven and her siblings receive one shock after another when their grandmother dies, and then Sarah (their stepmother) runs away after giving birth to a stillborn baby, which she believes was the result of Luke's infidelity. The biggest blow of all comes shortly after Sarah leaves, around Christmas time. Luke surprises everyone with an unthinkable Christmas present that will supposedly benefit the entire family: he intends to sell all five of his children for $500 a piece. Keith and Our Jane are the first to be "adopted". Fanny is next, taken in by Reverend Wayland Wise and his wife; then Tom, to a demanding farmer; and finally, Heaven, sold to an ex-lover of her father's (Kitty Dennison) and her submissive husband (Calhoun). Yet Cal is hardly a decent father. He would rather be Heaven's first lover than a role model. And Kitty isn't innocent of abuse either. She degrades Heaven with chemical baths and even turns her into a present-day Cinderella.

As expected in all of V. C. Andrews' books, Heaven's life is full of trauma and secrets. But her story certainly doesn't end here. It continues with "Dark Angel" and "Fallen Hearts", then "Gates of Paradise" and "Web of Dreams", the two separate stories of her daughter (Annie) and her mother (Leigh). I highly recommend this book, as well as the four other books in the Casteel series.