Born in Portsmouth, Virginia, Victoria Cleo Andrews came from humble beginnings, and a tragic accident would confine her to a wheelchair and the use of crutches most of her life. She didn't let this stop her ambition though. After completing a four-year correspondence course from home, she became a successful artist and illustrator. She didn't turn to writing until later in life, and while her first venture (which incidentally was a work of science fiction) would remain unpublished during her lifetime, her novel, Flowers in the Attic would mark the start of a legacy. Published in 1979, when she was 56,  it hit the bestseller lists in just two weeks. Each year until her death, she would produce a new novel. They were so popular, that a ghost writer was hired to complete works she had only begun after she lost her battle with cancer.

     Flowers in the Attic was the first book of hers that I ever read, and I may have seen the movie first. I became lost in the worlds of her characters and the terrific and terrible things that happened to them. While I've amassed an extensive collection of books credited to her name, the majority of them weren't actually written by her. Instead, they were authored by the same ghost writer who completed her earlier unfinished works and published in her name under license of her estate. That "Andrews" continues to publish new works some thirty-seven years after her passing speaks volumes for what she started and many of the earlier works have been adapted for film and television on Lifetime.

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V.C. Andrews is interred at Olive Branch Cemetery in her hometown of Portsmouth.