Second volume in the spellbinding Cutler family series. Dawn arrives in New York to study singing at the Bernhard School of Performing Arts - fulfilling her most treasured dream. However, escape from her past unhappiness at Cutler's Cove is not so simple: when the students' house supervisor, encouraged by the vindictive Grandmother Cutler, makes her life a misery, Dawn turns to her tutor, Michael - who seduces her, then disappears. Once again Dawn finds herself in the power of Grandmother Cutler, a virtual slave and prisoner in the nightmare world she thought she had left behind - until an unexpected inheritance transforms her life.
Like Flowers in the Attic, this has a genuine feeling of dread and darkness which builds into a devastating (though sadly predictable) ending. The characters are more developed this time around, and there is more intelligence and less pathos then the first book - Dawn Cutler is more 'adult' and much more vivid then she was before and the real strength of the book comes from its protagonists strong dialogue. The best in the Cutler saga.
Like Flowers in the Attic, this has a genuine feeling of dread and darkness which builds into a devastating (though sadly predictable) ending. The characters are more developed this time around, and there is more intelligence and less pathos then the first book - Dawn Cutler is more 'adult' and much more vivid then she was before and the real strength of the book comes from its protagonists strong dialogue. The best in the Cutler saga.
