The Life of V.C. Andrews

Cleo Virginia Andrews was born to William and Lillian Andrews on June 6, 1924. She was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, though she moved to different states throughout her life. While she didn't live a life as tragic as some of the characters in her novels, she had her fair share of problems. When she was a teenager, she suffered severe back injuries when she fell down a stairwell at her school. After failed surgeries, she was confined to a wheelchair and crutches for the remainder of her life. Despite her injury, Virginia attended school and was a good student. .

Although she was born Cleo Virginia Andrews, she became known as Virginia Cleo Andrews when she began writing. Virginia enjoyed painting as her first love, and didn't start writing until she was in her 40's. Her first novel was complete in 1972, and was called Gods of the Green Mountains. It was never published, and was recently released in e-book format for her fans to finally read. Virginia wrote at least twenty short stories, however only one was ever published in a magazine,

Her break-out novel was Flowers in the Attic, which was originally given the title The Obsessed. It was changed when Virginia revised the book. The next year, Petals on the Wind was written and released. After several more novels written for the same series, the Casteel series began, featuring Heaven, a naive girl who is sold by her father to a couple. After she worked more on the series, V. C. wrote a stand alone novel, My Sweet Audrina.

Before she died, V. C. got to see Flowers in the Attic developed in to a movie. She lived while it was filming, and actually got to appear in the film for a cameo. The film, however, was not released until after her death. V. C. Andrews died on December 19, 1986 to breast cancer. At the time of her death, she was 62 years old and had lived a fulfilling life doing some of the things that she loved the most.

When V. C. died, she left synopses for more than 60 other novels to be completed. Her legacy lives on due to a ghostwriter chosen to continue writing books based on the synopses - Andrew Niederman. His series include the Cutler, Logan, Wildflower, and Orphans series.

Little is actually known about the personal live that Virginia Andrews lived, as she did not participate much in publicity events. She liked her life to remain as private as possible, and claimed to have destroyed one of her first novels as it was too autobiographical.