Darkest Hour (5th in the Cutler Series) [Import] [Paperback]

Virginia Andrews (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books; New Ed edition (1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671852175
• ISBN-13: 978-0671852177
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,186,862 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

One of the most popular authors of all time, V.C. Andrews has been a bestselling phenomenon since the publication of her spellbinding classic Flowers in the Attic. That blockbuster novel began her renowned Dollanganger family saga, which includes Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and Garden of Shadows. Since then, readers have been captivated by more than fifty novels in V.C. Andrews' bestselling series. The thrilling new series featuring the March family continues with Scattered Leaves, forthcoming from Pocket Books. V.C. Andrews' novels have sold more than one hundred million copies and have been translated into sixteen foreign languages.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fifth and Final Book in the Cutler Family Series, March 8, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Darkest Hour (Cutler Family) (Mass Market Paperback)

"Darkest Hour," the fifth and final book in the Cutler family series, takes place in--where else?--the South, on a Virginia plantation called The Meadows. It's owned by Lillian Booth's family, which consists of her parents, her religious older sister (Emily), and her sickly younger sister (Eugenia--which, Cutler fans will notice, was Dawn Longchamp's proper first name).

Lillian, who is better known as simply Grandmother Cutler in this series, has about the same life as most other V. C. Andrews heroines. Her innocence is lost over the years when 1) she discovers a shocking family secret: that her parents aren't really her parents, 2) two people close to her die (Eugenia and her first boyfriend, Niles Thompson), and 3) she's raped by her uncle, resulting in an unwanted pregnancy. ...

Probably my favorite part in "Darkest Hour," though it is rather morbid, is when Lillian's young boyfriend dies after sneaking out of her bedroom window one night, and he's found "the next morning, crumpled beside the house, his neck broken from the fall." This was an interesting twist to the book since most boyfriends live until the very end. His death is just one of many things that make Lillian believe her older sister--that she is, in fact, evil; that everything she does turns to pot (to put it in Amazon.com-friendly terms). While her self-esteem plummets, Lillian creates a shell around herself to resist any more pain, turning her into the hard woman that she is later renowned for in this series.

Although I wasn't really into the Cutler family series (I enjoyed the Dollanganger and Casteel ones a lot more), "Darkest Hour" is one the remaining few books that still seems to resemble an original V. C. Andrews plot. After this series, most of the others are just copycats of the same old incestuous story line.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Echoes, November 11, 2000

By 

Isabelle Archer (US Virgin Islands) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Darkest Hour (Cutler Family) (Mass Market Paperback)

I have read most the VC Andrew family series (Dollanganger, Casteel, Cutler, Landry...) and they pretty much go downhill. Don't get me wrong, Heaven and Dawn are wonderful characters and Ruby can have an honorable mention, but VC Andrews' "voice" gets farther and farther from the prose with each new book. The style of Flowers in the Attic was raw, unforgettable and the newer ones have lost that through the ghost writers, but they are still good books. You can still feel VC Andrews' hand in them. Darkest Hour is one of the best.

It's the story of pretty Lillian Booth and her family, a rich line of Southern plantation owners. Lillian has always been a little different, a little brighter than her two sisters, sickly Eugenia and bible spouting Emily. But as Lillian grows, she finds out just how different. (...).

All in all, this book was fabulous. I cried on not less than two occasions(...) and was utterly surprised by some of the plot twists. (...). Imagination is always useful, though! Fans of the Cutler series will not be too disappointed.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best Cutler novel., December 6, 2003

By 

Ben M (Frankfurt) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Darkest Hour (Cutler Family) (Mass Market Paperback)

I honestly liked the entire series but "Darkest hour" is the best Cutler novel. While other readers said that it holds no surprises, I have to disagree. We get to know an entire different Lillian Cutler. Where is the cold old lady that tried to ruin Dawn's life in so many ways? This book tells the story of an innocent girl that truly finds no happiness, no matter how hard she tries. Whenever there's a glimmer of hope, something happens to destroy it.

Lillian's childhood doesn't justify how she treated Dawn. But it helps the reader to understand why she became the woman she was in the end.

A touching and surprising novel.