Virginia Cleo Andrews Livres

In the heart of the bayou, Ruby Landry lives a simple, happy life. But innocence can't last forever... The only family Ruby Landry has ever known are her loving guardian, Grandmère Catherine, a Cajun spiritual healer, and her drunken, outcast Grandpèrb Jack. Although thinking about her dead mother and mysterious father sometimes makes her feel as mournful as the wind sighing through the Spanish moss, Ruby is grateful for all she has. Her life is filled with hope and promise...especially when her attraction for handsome Paul Tate blossoms into a mysterious, wonderful love. But Paul's wealthy parents forbid him to associate with a poor Landry, and Grandmère urges her to follow her dream of becoming a great painter, foreseeing a time when Ruby will be surrounded with riches in the dazzling city of New Orleans! Yet she cannot know how close that uncertain future looms.... In a faded photograph, Ruby glimpses for the first time the image of her father -- and learns of a shameful deception and a shocking scheme of blackmail that now must come to light. Stunned by these revelations, she is devastated when Grandmère dies, leaving her to seek out her father in his vast New Orleans mansion. There, in a house of lies, madness, and cruel torment, Ruby clings to her memories of Paul to keep her heart alive. For only their love can save her now....

Driven from the Dumas Mansion back to her beloved bayou, Ruby's only hope is that fate will let her begin anew... Living again in a humble shack, Ruby is determined to make a secure and happy home for her precious infant daughter, Pearl. Paul Tate -- her first love, whom she was forced to abandon -- is at her side once more, now a man of dazzling wealth. When he whisks her into his grand house, it seems their future is assured. As mistress of Cypress Woods, Ruby can forget even the shocking reason she and Paul must wed in a secret ceremony and remain husband and wife in name alone. But the thick, expensive walls of Cypress Woods cannot shut out the terrible memories that have woven their fabric over her destiny, or the cold eyes of Paul's mother, Gladys, reminding Ruby of the secret she must keep to give Pearl a loving father. Then her venomous twin sister, Gisselle, arrives to taunt her with news of Beau Andreas, the true father Pearl has never met, and the only man Ruby will ever long for with all her body and soul, Desperate to find the complete, fulfilling life she craves, Ruby builds a precarious new existence, a flimsy shanty of hope that the first flood washes away. Only when the storm exposes the very blackest evils of the past will she glimpse the rainbow's fragile promise, a morning of sunshine and laughter with a family of her own....

Ce livre précède et explique la série de Fleurs captives. À l’origine, un couple inattendu, Malcolm et Olivia : elle, terne et sans relief, lui riche et beau. De victime d’un mauvais mariage, ils vont devenir bourreaux et se retrouver complices dans la haine, la vengeance et la folie. La victime sera Alicia, la seconde femme du père de Malcolm ; lorsque la mort de son père la lui livre sans défense, Malcom la viole … Enceinte, Alicia est cloîtrée jusqu’ à son accouchement, puis chassée du domaine. Sa fille Corinne lui est arrachée et Malcolm et Alicia la feront passer pour leur enfant. Ainsi commence la malédiction des futurs héros de Fleurs captives…

RAIN ALREADY KNOWS HOW HARD LIFE CAN BE. BUT SHE IS ABOUT TO DISCOVER A SHATTERING SECRET FROM THE PAST THAT WILL CHANGE HER FUTURE FOREVER.... Growing up in the ghettos of Washington, D.C., the cards are stacked against a hardworking dreamer like Rain Arnold. Rain has fought to be the best daughter she can: she studies hard and gets good grades; she helps her mother cook and clean. And unlike her defiant younger sister, she avoids the dangers of the city streets as if her life depends on it...and it does. But Rain can't suppress the feeling that she has never truly fit in, that she is a stranger in her own world. Then one fateful night, Rain overhears something she shouldn't: a heartbreaking revelation from the past, a long-buried secret that is about to change her life in ways she never could have imagined. In the blink of an eye, everything Rain has ever known -- the family she has loved and the familiar place she has called home is left behind, and Rain is sent to live with total strangers, the wealthy Hudson family. But just as she did not belong to the troubled world she was raised in, Rain is also out of place in this realm of luxury and privilege. With nowhere to turn, Rain finds an escape in the theater, inside the walls of an exclusive private school. But will it be enough to fulfill her heart's deepest wish -- and give her a place to call home?

405pages. poche. broché.

Heaven vit dans une cabane sordide en compagnie de ses parents, de ses grands-parents et de ses quatre frères et soeurs. Perchée dans les collines, démunie de tout, la vie est un véritable cauchemar pour la jeune adolescente. Son père, un minable contrebandier qui passe ses nuits à jouer, la déteste. Sa mère adoptive, de nouveau enceinte, met au monde un enfant mort-né avant de s'enfuir du foyer maudit. Seule pour veiller sur la famille, Heaven doit abandonner l'école et voler de la nourriture pour survivre. Et l'horreur poursuit son chemin... Tour à tour les enfants sont vendus, Heaven devient l'esclave d'un couple riche. Mais envers et contre tout, malgré la malédiction qui pèse sur elle, elle garde intact l'espoir de retrouver ses frères et soeurs disparus !

Bart, âgé désormais de vingt-cinq ans, hérite de Foxworth, la demeure maudite, qu'il restaure entièrement. La grande fête qu'il y organise prend vite l'allure d'un nouveau départ pour cette famille meurtrie et déchirée depuis plus de quarante ans. Ainsi, la rivalité entre Bart, l'ambitieux, le mal-aimé, et son frère Jory, danseur étoile au firmament de sa carrière, est peut-être enfin appelée à se résorber, ou bien au contraire à s'amplifier de manière irréversible. Marqué du sceau de leur passé, mais à jamais unis par d'inaltérables sentiments, Christopher et Cathy devront une nouvelle fois surmonter la malédiction qui pèse sur Foxworth pour espérer goûter ce bonheur qui les a toujours fuis.