I just realized it was V.C. Andrews' birthday today. Of course she died in the '80s, but if she had lived, she would be 102 today. Weird piece of trivia, but I happened to see it on her Wiki page the other day, and it stuck in my short-term memory.

If you were a fan as a kid and/or as an adult, what was your favorite of her original seven books? Those seven include Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, My Sweet Audrina, Heaven and Dark Angel.

I like all of them in their own way, but if I had to pick, I would say My Sweet Audrina because the opening paragraph was really good. It started off with a bang. And it just got crazier and crazier. It's also a book about a girl whose sister died on her 9th birthday while walking in the woods in the rain, so the parents don't celebrate birthdays, and the main character is forbidden from walking in the woods when it rains. V.C. Andrews seemed to have an issue with birthdays, the number nine and with rainy days for some reason. Daddy Dollanganger also died on his birthday. I think it was a hit because that's too coincidental. And that police officer spent way too much time elaborating on all the ways he could have survived had some Final Destination disaster not immediately followed. So yeah, people often die on their birthdays in her books.