Dark Angel (Casteel Series #2) » (Reissue)

"The face of fear I display in my novels is not the pale specter from the sunken grave, nor is it the thing that goes bump in the night," V. C. Andrews once told Douglas E. Winter. "Mine are the deep-seated fears established when we are children, and they never quite go away: the fear of being helpless, the fear of being trapped, the fear of being out of control."

At last, Heaven would find the happiness she longed for...free from the scorn and contempt of her past!

In her grandmother's fine, rich Boston house, Heaven Leigh Casteel dreamed of a wonderful new life of new friends, the best schools, beautiful clothes and most important, love. The pearls of culture, wisdom and breeding would now be hers. Soon she would make the Casteel name respectable, find her brothers and sisters, and have a family again.

But even in the world of the wealthy, there were strange forebodings, secrets best forgotten. And as Heaven reached out for love, she was slowly ensnared in a sinister web of cruel deceits and hidden passions!

Library Journal

This posthumously published novel by Andrews, who is best known, perhaps, for Flowers in the Attic (1979), is the sequel to Heaven (Pocket Bks., 1985). Dark Angel is the saga of a teenage girl, Heaven Casteel, who is transported from her poverty-stricken life in Appalachia to the richly luxurious home of her maternal grandmother. Unfortunately, it is a formulaic nave-heroine-meets-darkly-mysterious-relatives/rags-to-riches story, with a lot more detail than needed about new clothes, hairstyles, makeup, and more. In fact, the heroine often comes off as a shallow, petulant, and at times ridiculously love-starved and man-dependent young woman. The production values of the cassette program are adequate, and the story's reader, Jami Castell, does a fine job portraying the teenager's voice. Nevertheless, as a purchase, even for YA collections, Dark Angel is not recommended.-Kristen L. Smith, Loras Coll. Lib., Dubuque, Ia.