Customer Reviews

Heavenstone Secrets (Heavenstone Series)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Sigh. Where do I start? The cardboard characters? The simplistic yet contrived family secrets and insanity, the predictable sibling rivalry, or the yawn-inspiring revelations? Let's not forget the recycled TITLES (April Shadows/Girl in the Shadows ---> Secrets in the Attic/Secrets in the Shadows ---> Heavenstone Secrets/Secret Whispers) This particular book is even more disappointing after you read the synopsis for its sequel (which can be accessed at the 'Complete VCA' site - a truly fine and wonderful site. Despite my feelings for Andrew Neiderman himself, I certainly don't hold it against the site)

Andrew Neiderman isn't even trying anymore. He writes his own novels and usually releases at least one a year (not including these "VCA" books) and I don't feel any passion in these books. When VCA died over 20 years ago, Neiderman did a good job of finishing the books she was unable to finish. He deserves kudos for that. And even though some people didn't like the Cutler series, I enjoyed it, and am happy he wrote the Dawn books. Landry and Logan series weren't as good, but still enjoyable.

Then he did the Orphans miniseries... and the VCA collection was never the same again. Longtime fans of VCA - myself included - have watched in dismay and disgust as disappointing after increasingly disappointing series are given VCA's good name. If Neiderman wants to keep writing these books - though if he apparently doesn't care to try anymore, why even bother? - then at least give VCA her dignity back and write these tween books under HIS own name. The brilliant mind who penned the Flowers in the Attic series as well as the Heaven series does NOT deserve to have her name on this embarrassingly poor book.

If Neiderman does derive some sort of enjoyment of writing these books, then it's better that he write them under his own name. These books don't have any of the old VCA feel to them, even. These stories resemble nothing of Flowers in the Attic or Heaven, or Audrina, and people who start with a new VCA book (not knowing of the real VCA books) have commented on how surprised they are at this bad writing.

For goodness' sake, Mr. Neiderman. This has gone on long enough! How many books did VCA write? 11! How many years? Not even a decade! How many books did YOU write? About 50! How long? Almost 25 now! The horse has been long dead, time to bury it, flogging just makes the problem worse. VCA didn't do ANYTHING to deserve her name being abused like this.

She spun out fine villains like Malcolm and Olivia Foxworth, Damian and Vera Adare, Tony Tatterton and Luke Casteel along with Kitty Setterton/Dennison. Let's not forget Clara Sue and Philip Cutler, and Grandmother Cutler and Pa and Emily Booth... I'm surprised that since Neiderman made such good villains in the Cutler series, he's making crappy, one-dimensional villains now.

VCA's (the real VCA, of course) made her series about not just families, but GENERATIONS. In Seeds of Yesterday, Malcolm and Olivia Foxworth have been long dead, but their hate and their deeds still leak down to the younger generations... Leigh, Heaven, and Annie were all tormented and lusted after by Tony, Emily tortures Lillian and then her granddaughter... you get the idea. There's none of that family secrets/generational thing here (and hasn't been for a long time, actually. Rain and Willow were both half-@$$ed on family secrets and very sparse, and after that, no more as Neiderman started writing shorter series.

One thing I miss a lot is the keyhole and stepback images. That was briefly restored (for the Attic Secrets series) and then dropped again. I loved the stepbacks because of the family/character picture groups. It was fun to try to identify them and see who was who (or wonder at the inaccuracies, like the one in Garden of Shadows). Some might think that covers are trite compared to the book itself, but these stepback images/family pictures were classic. And now what do we have? Cassie (at least I think so, because of the facial expression on the girl, even though Semantha's the main character of this book)

Why has the formula been changed? Cassie? Semantha? SEMANTHA??? We had Heaven, Dawn, Ruby, Melody, Rain, Willow... and then all of a sudden it stopped. And now we have stupid, horribly misspelled names like Semantha.

And as a final insult to VCA... you know what the cover of this book says? (Yes, I have seen/held the book myself) It says... 'From the creator of Flowers in the Attic'. I almost did a double-take, just to make sure that I had read the statement correctly. How insulting to Ms. Andrews herself!

Yes, seriously. That's what the book cover says, and if you also click on the book here on its page to enlarge it, you can see for yourself! Hello, publishers? Are you paying attention? Andrew Neiderman is NOT V.C. Andrews!

I really wanted to like this one... I tried to give it a shot. But UGH! I mean really - It was so forced. The whole premise of how poor Semantha has everything happening because she won't stand up for herself. The Dad and Mom were completly controlled by their children namely Cassie and for what? Nothing turned out well. I am not interested in the new book at all. I have no desire to find out what will happen to Semantha .. maybe I would read it if it was about Anna. But no - no desire to see further of Sementha's lack of identity.

This was a horrible story. How many times was she going to have the same conversation with her older sister? Led me down a path of expectation and did not deliver. I will no longer pick a new book by VC Andrews......this shadow writer should be ashamed!

I bought this book thinking finally getting back to stories like Flowers in the Attic I was wrong. I will not buy the second book to this nor read anymore of the books by the man who is pretending to be VC Andrews I mean really did she have that many books started. Why is her family letting this man continue to write in her name. Oh wait, what am I saying, they are getting profits off the books.

Look, I get that there's money to be made via the name VC Andrews. But for the love of all things holy, wouldn't it make sense to ditch the current ghostwriter, bring in one who can actually recapture the glory days of Andrews work and propel the books back into the pop-culture spotlight in which they basked years ago? It's wildly clear that the current writer lost touch with his ability to channel Andrews -- or, worse, simply gave up and adapted a "take the money and run" approach -- long ago. There was a time when the VC Andrews name -- even after AN first took over the actual writing following her death -- meant something. You knew you were getting a well-written book with certain characteristics. Now, the books are worse than 95 percent of the dreck that is foisted upon "young adult" readers instead of being the compelling, creepy, wonderful explorations of dark psychologies they once were. It's a travesty made all the sadder by the fact that there is an audience out there who continues snatching the books up. I can't help wondering how many of them are newer readers who have no clue whatsoever the roots from which these books sprung, having nothing in common with the originals aside from the font of the author's name on the cover.

The only way I can describe this book is slow and very boring.
It looks promising when it first starts out. But once the main tragedy hits it slows way down. And from what I can see all the rest of the book is Cassie bitching at Semantha about "how to prepare her and daddy's meals" and what to wear and pretty much treating her like a 2 year old.
I've got about 100 pages left.Everytime I try to read a couple more pages I get bored to tears. The characters are completely 2 dimensional. Semantha is pathetic. Cassie is so monotonious and annoying from page to page that she makes me hate the book more than anything else.
Secrets in the Shadows dragged on for me in a similar way.
The Delia series was alright so I thought the books might be improving.
I was wrong. Very wrong. I don't want to read any new V.C books because of this thing.
Cassie is the worst V.C Andrews villian by far. She's not even much of a villian. All she does is whine at Semantha on how to treat "Daddy" and obsess about "Daddy".
Who knows, it might get better toward the end. But it is so monotonous and boring! I don't know if I'll be able to make myself read much more of it.
I enjoyed reading my homework back in highschool from the textbooks more than this piece of crap!
This is about the worst book I've ever read.
It really had potential to be a good book too.
I mean the plot is interesting enough but it just drags on so bad.
And there's way too many details about them prepareing meals and irrelevant crap that doesn't even move the story forward.
Cassie isn't even threatening. She's just really annoying and whiny and bossy.
Reading this book feels as bad as being a little kid again and having a family member nag you to do chores. Except much worse.
I don't know if I'll be able to force myself to read the last 100 pages. If I do and it get's better. I'll write up on it.
But I wouldn't waste my money on it if I were you.
I'm pretty sure you would regret it.
I would get it from the libriary if you really want to read it.
And I love most of V.C Andrews books. Even the ones done by the ghostwriter. Except for "Secrets in the Attic" and this one which drag on and on.

I can't believe anyone could claim that the evil sister plot is "something new." Are you kidding??? My Sweet Audrina, Heaven, several books in the Cutler series...I could go on. Bottom line: there's nothing here you haven't seen done better before. Don't even waste the time on the same old bad writing. And DEFINITELY don't waste the money.

This novel only works because the main character, despite being a fourteen-year-old girl in a public school in modern times, is the most naive fourteen-year-old ever. And unfortunately that also makes the book nearly unbearable.

Semantha (yes, spelled that way) is so oblivious to very obvious things that I found myself putting the book down for days without wanting to read it. What's sad is at the beginning of the novel I thought, "This is the V. C. Andrews story-telling I remember." It did not take me long to eat my words. I do not remember the books being so horribly predictable before. And the lies Cassie is able to tell with no one figuring it out is astounding.

I wish V. C. Andrews would go back to the days of Flowers in the Attic, Dawn, or Ruby, or even Heaven. Not this drivel.

So I really wanted to give this book a chance. I was a VC Andrews fan for years and after the horrible dreck turned out lately I just gave up on the newer books. Sure, I give them a passing glance at the store but since the new female characters are usually pale imitations of the older ones I usually just go back to read the angst ridden, gothic romance,tragedy laced books such as the Flowers in the Attic or Casteel series, I may even read the Landrys for a little while. I saw this cover and thought that perhaps Heavenstone series may have a fighting chance. Now that I finished it..I can safely say this book was knocked out and thrown from the ring. I gave it a chance, I sat down one night to read it and I had the expectations that perhaps this book would be good. Nope.

So, I have read some reviews complain about the new characters names and I have to disagree. I was getting a bit sick of the noun for name shtick and so the fact that this book had a girl with a somewhat normal name was fine to me. Remember, sure we had Heaven, Dawn, Ruby, Rain and so on but remember there were also Catherine and Audrina who were two of the most haunted characters I have ever read.

Now on the subject of this book...Semantha (really..SEMantha, for the sake of originality we had to call her that?)is NOT a heroine. She is a whiny mope. Sure, Cassie is a cow, we get it but let's look on the positives, you live in a friggen' mansion, you are taken care of. I mean, Heaven would have killed for a bathroom in the house and you are whining about your sister?

The sister isn't as bad as I thought she would be. I thought she would be a total villian, a Vera incarnate (for those who don't know this reference read My Sweet Audrina. Cassie is Vera Light. All the bitterness, none of the entertainment.) So, let's take into action that Cassie takes care of things around the house, someone has to do it.Cassie takes things too far, she has some pretty bad problems but then again I don't recall Semantha saying anything nice about her that didn't have a bitter tang. If I hear one word about how Cassie is a cow I'll scream. I mean, even the books in which there was that evil sister (My Sweet Audrina, Heaven, I guess Rain, Dawn and even a book that was contrived around the bad sister storyline,Ruby) the heroine still has a life away from that. Semantha.Nothing really. Get a hobby, Semantha.

Now, Semantha doesn't really have a backbone but then again seeing her mother and father I can see where she got it from. I wanted one good b*tch slap but nope. Now this girl isn't just a wimp BUT it takes her 7 months to realize she's knocked up. REALLY? I can realize I have a headache faster then this chick thinks "Hey..it's been more then 7 months that I have had a period..what's up?" Heck, I think most women after probably three periods missing run for the grocery store to get a test. Anyone contrary to this opinion could throw up the reasons why she didn't catch on, I am not having it. By 7 months there are some effects of pregnancy even if she wasn't showing, there would have been some clue.

I gave the book a chance, I thought maybe it would be good and Neiderman got his act together. No. He didn't. I gave the book away to my sister and I told her (with vampire teeth) to go make me some cocoa.

This book took way too long to get into the plot, and it gets repetitive. I mean, really? It takes Semantha (and I was bothered every time I see how her name was spelled, what was the point of that?) until she is about 7 months pregnant to finally realize she is pregnant.

...really?

...REALLY?

I mean, seriously. She just believes what the sister says about refusing to hire a real doctor and getting a different one instead? And being okay with her sister saying she should have a home birth? And doesn't even get mad?

I also found much of the dialogue absolutely ridiculous, and even by the end of the novel Cassie's motives are still unclear.