Ebook Download Girl in the Shadows, by V.C. Andrews
Girl In The Shadows, By V.C. Andrews. Modification your behavior to hang or waste the time to only chat with your close friends. It is done by your everyday, don't you really feel bored? Now, we will show you the extra routine that, in fact it's an older practice to do that could make your life more qualified. When really feeling tired of consistently talking with your buddies all spare time, you could locate guide qualify Girl In The Shadows, By V.C. Andrews then read it.
Girl in the Shadows, by V.C. Andrews
Ebook Download Girl in the Shadows, by V.C. Andrews
Girl In The Shadows, By V.C. Andrews. Learning how to have reading habit is like learning to attempt for eating something that you really do not want. It will certainly require more times to help. In addition, it will also little make to offer the food to your mouth and also ingest it. Well, as reviewing a publication Girl In The Shadows, By V.C. Andrews, sometimes, if you should read something for your new works, you will certainly really feel so lightheaded of it. Even it is a publication like Girl In The Shadows, By V.C. Andrews; it will certainly make you really feel so bad.
Also the rate of an e-book Girl In The Shadows, By V.C. Andrews is so budget friendly; several people are truly thrifty to set aside their money to buy guides. The other factors are that they feel bad as well as have no time to visit guide establishment to browse guide Girl In The Shadows, By V.C. Andrews to review. Well, this is modern period; numerous books can be obtained easily. As this Girl In The Shadows, By V.C. Andrews and much more publications, they could be entered really fast methods. You will certainly not require to go outside to obtain this e-book Girl In The Shadows, By V.C. Andrews
By seeing this page, you have actually done the best staring point. This is your begin to choose the e-book Girl In The Shadows, By V.C. Andrews that you really want. There are lots of referred publications to check out. When you wish to obtain this Girl In The Shadows, By V.C. Andrews as your e-book reading, you could click the link page to download and install Girl In The Shadows, By V.C. Andrews In few time, you have actually owned your referred books as all yours.
Because of this book Girl In The Shadows, By V.C. Andrews is marketed by on the internet, it will certainly ease you not to publish it. you can get the soft file of this Girl In The Shadows, By V.C. Andrews to conserve in your computer system, gadget, as well as a lot more tools. It relies on your desire where and also where you will review Girl In The Shadows, By V.C. Andrews One that you should consistently bear in mind is that checking out publication Girl In The Shadows, By V.C. Andrews will certainly never ever end. You will have eager to review various other publication after completing an e-book, and it's continually.
SHE WASN'T A LITTLE GIRL ANYMORE -- BUT WHO WAS SHE REALLY?
After an odyssey of heartbreak and betrayal in the wake of losing both her parents, it was mere chance that led April Taylor to the secluded home of a kindly elderly woman and her deaf teenaged granddaughter. There, April found a shelter from her mixed-up life, and from the confusion that severed her relationship with her sister, Brenda, after an encounter with Brenda's girlfriend, Celia. But when a dangerous couple arrives with greedy intentions, April's survival depends on being true to the one person she's never fully accepted: herself.
- Sales Rank: #1151924 in Books
- Brand: Pocket Star
- Published on: 2006-03-01
- Released on: 2006-02-28
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 6.75" h x .90" w x 4.19" l, .43 pounds
- Binding: Mass Market Paperback
- 416 pages
- Great product!
About the Author
One of the most popular authors of all time, V.C. Andrews has been a bestselling phenomenon since the publication of Flowers in the Attic, first in the renowned Dollanganger family series which includes Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and Garden of Shadows. The family saga continues with Christopher’s Diary: Secrets of Foxworth, Christopher’s Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger, and Secret Brother. V.C. Andrews has written more than seventy novels, which have sold more than 106 million copies worldwide and been translated into twenty-five foreign languages.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Prologue
Most people don't think about the way night falls around them. They go along their merry way and suddenly think, Oh, it's dark outside. They are truly unaware of how the shadows thicken and begin to ooze toward each other, merging, melding, clasping their invisible hands together to unite and flow forward to surround us. They rarely notice that the birds have retreated to their quiet places within the inky corners of the forest, nesting calmly with patience and optimism. Birds don't suffer through nightmares as I often do. They believe the sun will always return and the clouds will eventually be gone. All that they know, they have inherited. They do not separate their knowledge from themselves. It is who or what they are and they are comfortable with all of it. You can see their contentment and their confidence in the way they fly.
I envy them for that, for their comfort but mostly for their self-assurance, their wonderful trust in themselves and in the promises Nature makes, whether it is the promise of the seasons, the promise of the rain, or the promise of the sun itself. They glide and slice through their day, carving a world of beauty for themselves.
Mrs. Westington said that even though we are the more complex and the higher form of life for which all of this supposedly has been created, we still covet the simplicity that animals, that even insects enjoy. Their lives are so uncomplicated.
"They don't need the guidance of the Ten Commandments in order to avoid sin," she said.
"But," I asked, "are they capable of real happiness or do they just plod along in a mechanical manner? Do they have ambitions? Do they dream and hope? Do birds, rabbits, foxes, and snakes smile? Do they really ever experience rapture, ecstasy, contentment?"
"Oh, I don't know if they do or if it even matters. More important," Mrs. Westington replied, "you should ask, do we? We have our moments, even our days," she said, "but it doesn't last. Before long, we're envious of others or we're upset with someone we love or we're bored, disgusted, and disappointed. Notice the coming of night?" she asked when I'd mentioned my thought, punctuating her reply with her tiny, coughlike laugh. "Most of us don't even notice the day, much less stop to smell the roses or look up at the stars in awe of their dazzling beauty. My husband was oblivious like that. He never stopped to enjoy what he had. He was always in pursuit of something more and it was never enough. I wonder if he found enough in the grave."
Sometimes for hours, I listened to her ramble on, moving from one topic to the next, dropping her tidbits of wisdom with the grace and generosity of a loving mother feeding her newborns in the nest. She lectured authoritatively, like a professor in the school of hard knocks. When she got too despondent or waved a tattered flag of lifelong regrets, her loyal employee of fifty years, Trevor Washington, would just shake his head and say, "You c'mon now, Mrs. Westington. None of that doom and gloom talk or you'll scare the poor girl outta here."
Most of the time she ignored him or dismissed him with a short wave of her hand.
And the only other person who lived in the old vineyard home, her fourteen-year-old granddaughter, Echo, was deaf, and in many ways a birdlike creature herself, hovering in her private corners waiting for a song she would never hear sung.
Mrs. Westington had invited me to move in and live with them to help her with Echo and be Echo's companion. Echo's mother, Mrs. Westington's daughter, Rhona, had left Echo here more than ten years ago and Echo was without any brother or sister, any friends or any parent. I couldn't imagine a lonelier person than Echo, who had already been locked away within the four walls of silence.
"My daughter named her Echo when the doctor said her baby was deaf. 'It'll be like hearing yourself whenever you talk to her. It's a perfect name for her,' she told me when I complained," Mrs. Westington said. "Truth is, I kinda like her name now."
"It's different. I like it, too," I told her.
"I knew you would. I knew you would be a good friend to her, too. She should have a friend. Goodness knows, that poor girl longs for a real companion."
What I soon realized, however, was that Mrs. Westington needed me as much as Echo did. She was brimful of wisdom and a lifetime of experiences she desperately had to share with someone she loved. I like that. I like the feeling of being important to someone and loved. Even when Daddy and Mama and my older sister, Brenda, and I were all still together, I didn't feel as needed as I felt here in the old house and vineyard property in northern California.
A wrong turn onto a dead-end road brought me to this place and to these people. After my mother's death, which wasn't all that long after my father's secret fatal illness, I had gone to live with Brenda and her lover, Celia. Both attended college in Memphis, where Brenda had won an athletic scholarship. Like my parents, I ignored any thoughts about Brenda's being gay. I had no doubts that my parents knew it to be true but kept it locked in their hearts. I was afraid to ask any questions, afraid that the same questions might someday be asked of me, afraid that on the back of my neck I would feel the breeze of all that whispering.
My deep unhappiness after Mama's passing and then a traumatic sexual incident with Celia sent me fleeing to my uncle Palaver, my mother's brother, for emotional asylum. Before I came here to Mrs. Westington's home, I had been living and traveling for months with my uncle. He was a magician and an excellent ventriloquist who mainly went from theater to theater in his motor home to perform. I soon realized that he suffered from serious alcoholism brought on by his own deep sorrow over the loss of his beloved companion, the African American woman called Destiny. She had been part of his act, but more important, a big part of his life.
One night after I had been with him a while, he died in the rear of his motor home, lying beside the replica of Destiny, a life-size doll he employed in his show after her passing. Even though I feared it would happen because I witnessed how much he drank and how often, it was still a horrible shock to find him dead in his bed, his arms around the naked doll. From the smile on his face, I was positive he died convinced he had found her again.
Mrs. Westington believed all this was meant to be, was fated, especially my arrival here, and I must say she persuaded me. I felt delivered, guided, and directed to this place. Mrs. Westington's theory was that our loved ones who have passed away remain with us for a time and have an influence on our lives.
"They do their best to watch over us and lead us to happiness," she said. "But only if they were good people," she added. "How good they were determines how long they can be with us to protect us. That's what the Bible really means when we read, 'The sins of the father are visited on the heads of his sons.' If he was a sinner, then his sons have no guardian angel, you see, and no one to protect and insulate them against the weight of all those sins and their consequences. In that sense, they suffer. Your mama and your papa must have been good people. They're still watching over you."
I liked that. I liked her interpretation of Scripture. However, Mrs. Westington was really not a Bible-thumping, religion-driven woman. In fact, she often went into tirades about the corruption of the clergy and the troubles in the world that religions visited on each other. She said it would take a tow truck to get her to church and she'd dig ditches with her heels all the way. She was very opinionated and very confident of all her opinions. When she went into one of her diatribes, she often made me laugh. Sometimes, she wanted to, but sometimes, I could see she was surprised herself at my smile.
"I'm serious, girl," she'd say, and widen her eyes, often followed by a quick, hard tap with her cane. That long, old hickory stick with its pearl handle was something Trevor Washington had made for her. She told me he made it, "Two seconds after I began to wobble."
"Oh, I know you're serious, Mrs. Westington," I told her, and she grunted with skepticism. "I do and I'm not laughing at you!" I insisted.
I didn't want to upset her. She'd been so kind to me. She helped me with my uncle's funeral arrangements and supported me during the whole ordeal. Brenda, now a professional athlete, was off to Germany for a basketball tournament the day after Uncle Palaver died. It all fell on my head. I knew she thought my problems were my own making. I shouldn't have run away after she had found her girlfriend, Celia, with me, but that wasn't my fault and I couldn't stand the dark cloud of Brenda's anger hovering over me. I couldn't stomach the thought of living with her while she despised me. I felt like a lead weight on her ankles anyway. Having the responsibility for a young teenage sister just when she was developing her own promising athletic career was a burden she surely would rather unload.
Even so, even after all that, when Mrs. Westington had asked me to move in, I was nervous and undecided. After all, she, Trevor, and Echo were complete strangers to me and I had been on the property less than a day. I quickly saw, however, that when Mrs. Westington made up her mind about something, she went forward "whole hog," as she would say, even though it was something she had not pondered long.
"No one should be impulsive and fall between the devil and the deep blue sea, but we don't live long enough to waste time," she lectured at dinner, where most of her lectures took place. "When you reach my age, you realize that even more. Your heart is like one of them parking meters. God puts a few coins in and you tick away, but that expired sign is climbing and old man Death is getting ready to give me a ticket. I can see his grumpy old face forming in the fog just outside the windows of my very soul."
The expression on her face, the way she focused her...
Most helpful customer reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
Good, a little slow in places
By Justice
Overall I've enjoyed this "Shadows" series-the two books are intriguing stories with lots of twists and turns, and an ultimately positive message of an adolescent girl finding self-esteem, strength, and resilience in the wake of successive tragedies. She also learns compassion and there's a lot of sensitivity in the character portraits in the book. I really grew to like April, and the plot was pretty exciting, but some parts of the book were just too repetitive and boring-I had to skip them.
And I must renew my original objection to the series, which is that there is no romance in it. That seems to actually be a pattern as of late with the ghostwriter; beginning with Willow, whose only really passionate love interest ends up being callously uninterested in her, I feel the VC Andrews franchise has begun to neglect to provide our heroines with a faithful, utterly devoted lover. What happened to Christopher from "Flowers in the Attic", Troy from "Heaven" etc. etc.? VC NEVER had a heroine who didn't have some man who was obsessed with her. April's relationship with Tyler is depressing and unfulfilling both for her and us.
The voyeurism Tyler seems to want to experience with Destiny, April's ventriloquist "dummy", follows with creepy VC tradition, but the plot is not really developed. I just think that if Tyler was going to be that dysfunctional, then a better lover should have shown up at the end. These later books don't have much real passion in them; just a lot of "hook-ups".
This isn't what VC readers want. And as intriguing as April was, and as much as I congratulate the author's willingness to create a character that went against VC "type" (i.e., chubby and of ambiguous sexual orientation), I just felt the series story could have had more emotional resonance if it had allowed April one more book to truly find herself, resolve her family issues, work out her relationship with Brenda and find meaningful intimacy with someone. Ultimately the book just didn't have the romantic magic outerworldly element that we need from VC books.
Still, I recommend it as an entertaining few hours. Just don't expect to be swept away the way you were with early V.C...but then again you probably already knew that.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
No More
By M
This has to stop, seriously. When Neiderman first ghostwrote for VCA, he did a decent job. I liked the Cutler series, and he did a good job of finishing up the books that VCA had started but didn't finish for the Dollanganger and Casteel series. The Landry and Logan series, while not the best, were still very decent, and I enjoyed them. However, it all started to go downhill with Orphans. That was not what VCA would have written. I endured the Hudson and DeBeers series with disgust. Broken Wings and Gemini were intolerable.
April wasn't a real heroine. There were no horrible, dark secrets (her father's secret was laughable) and no real family secrets at all. This book focused a lot her stumbling (and unrealistic) explorations of her own sexuality as well as her struggle with weight. It seems as if the ghostwriter is venting his dislike of fat people because April is obsessed about her weight and everyone else makes fun of her, and in this book the struggle continues and is contrived and predictable in many places. The scene where she was in the bath with the young deaf girl was creepy.
It also seems that Neiderman has a problem with deaf characters, as in the Logan series, May was portrayed as weak and fragile and helpless, and the deaf girl in this book is portrayed the same way, in a unfunny and unsympathetic caricature. Disappointing.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
It's good!
By Foger
April is a chubby sexually confused girl. After her uncle died in book one, she got taken in by a nice elderly woman. April provides company to the woman and her deaf granddaughtar. Just as April begins to enjoy her new life, the deaf girls greedy mom returns wanting money and even hoping her own mother dies. With a aging Grandma, and a deaf daughtar, only April can stand in her way.
I really enjoyed this. It's slow paced, but very good. Strong characters started in book one continue and get even better. April is ever battling her weight, and Destiny a doll returns to steal the show. This is similar to a lot of other V.C Andrews books and predictable, but there are surprises too. It has all the nastiness you expect including a sick bathtub scene, and a attempted rape scene that actually has you laughing your head off. That sounds bad but, you have to read it to see. It's not as harsh as some and not many secrets, but we don't need them. Also it has a good ending that doesn't leave you sick and depressed. I love April and hope this series never ends.
Girl in the Shadows, by V.C. Andrews PDF
Girl in the Shadows, by V.C. Andrews EPub
Girl in the Shadows, by V.C. Andrews Doc
Girl in the Shadows, by V.C. Andrews iBooks
Girl in the Shadows, by V.C. Andrews rtf
Girl in the Shadows, by V.C. Andrews Mobipocket
Girl in the Shadows, by V.C. Andrews Kindle
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar