Virginia C. Andrews, born as Cleo Virginia Andrews, was a highly influential American author who specialized in gothic horror novels involving families. She was born on June 6, 1923, in Portsmouth, Virginia, and was the youngest child of William Henry Andrews, a career navy man, and Lillian Lilnora Parker Andrews, a telephone operator. Andrews spent a happy childhood in Portsmouth, with brief periods in Rochester, New York. However, a tragic accident during her teenage years left her with severe back injuries, and she had to spend most of her life on crutches or in a wheelchair.
Andrews excelled in school and won a scholarship for writing a parody of Tennyson's Idylls of the King. After graduating from Woodrow Wilson High School in Portsmouth, she completed a four-year correspondence art course. She then worked as a commercial artist, portrait painter, and fashion illustrator to support herself and her mother. Frustrated with the lack of creative satisfaction in her work, Andrews turned to writing, which she did in secret. She wrote her first novel, The Gods of the Green Mountain, in 1972, but it was never published. Between 1972 and 1979, she wrote nine novels and twenty short stories, of which only one was published.
In 1979, Andrews's breakthrough came with the publication of Flowers in the Attic, a novel that became a bestseller and launched her career. The novel was followed by Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and Garden of Shadows, which completed the Dollanganger family saga. Since then, readers have been captivated by more than fifty novels in Andrews' bestselling series. Her novels have sold more than one hundred million copies and have been translated into sixteen foreign languages. Andrews passed away in 1986, but two final novels, Garden of Shadows and Fallen Hearts, were published posthumously. These novels are considered the last to bear the "V.C. Andrews" name and to be almost completely written by her.