Flowers In The Attic By C.V. Andrews, Now An Original Lifetime Movie

"Some mothers are impossible to love..."

Flowers In The Attic is book #1 in the Dollanganger series and launched Virginia Cleo Andrews' career as a sensational best-selling author. The provocative young adult Gothic romance was an instant success and rapidly became a classic novel: two weeks after its paperback publication in 1979, Andrews' coming-of-age tale reached the top of the New York Times best-seller list and was followed by four equally phenomenal sequels - Petals On The Wind, If Ther Be Thorns, Seeds Of Yesterday, and Garden Of Shadows.

Originally titled The Obsessed, the book was submitted to a publisher as a 290,000-word novel. An extremely lengthy work of fiction by a virtually unknown and young author wouldn't normally stand a chance to see the light of the day, but Pocket Books saw the potential and didn't turn it down. Andrews was encouraged to trim it down and spice it up: in a single night she redrafted it adding "unspeakable things [her] mother didn't want [her] to write about". The ninety-eight-page revision became the iconic Flowers In The Attic.

Andrew's coming of age novel narrates the dark and haunting story of four beautiful and innocent children hidden away by their mother in an attic and tormented by their superstition grandmother. 

"They were a perfect family, golden and carefree—until a heartbreaking tragedy shattered their happiness. Now, for the sake of an inheritance that will ensure their future, the children must be hidden away out of sight, as if they never existed. Kept on the top floor of their grandmother’s vast mansion, their loving mother assures them it will be just for a little while. But as brutal days swell into agonizing months and years, Cathy, Chris, and twins Cory and Carrie realize their survival is at the mercy of their cruel and superstitious grandmother…and this cramped and helpless world may be the only one they ever know."

Flowers In The Attic is now a Lifetime original movie starring Heather Graham as Corrine, Academy Award winner Ellen Burstyn as Olivia and Kiernan Shipka as Cathy. The tv drama inspired by C.V. Andrews' provocative and terrifying novel premieres tomorrow night, January 18, on Lifetime at 8pm/7 central.

“I wish the night would end,

I wish the day'd begin,

I wish it would rain or snow,

or the wind would blow,

or the grass would grow,

I wish I had yesterday,

I wish there were games to play...”