HEAVEN by Virginia Andrews

1ST BOOK IN A SERIES OF 5 BOOKS 
Starting with Heaven, it is the story of how one woman’s selfish vanity affects the lives of the next 3 generations of women.
The tale begins in the mountains of West Virginia in a small 2 room shack in an area called The Willies, Heaven lives a hard life with little food and less money, she shares this tiny cabin with her grandparents Annie and Toby, parents Luke and Sarah, 2 sisters Fanny and Jane and 2 brothers Tom and Keith.
Its not long before Heaven finds out that the mother she has always known is not in fact her birth mother, her true mother died giving birth to her at the tender age of 14 and is buried on the mountainside.
When she learns this she thinks she understands why her father has always been so cold and unloving, in her eyes he could never forgive her for the death of his Angel. She dreams of one day finding her maternal family and going to collage to become a teacher.
Things get worse; her father becomes ill and leaves the family to virtually fend for themselves. Heavens stepmother gives birth to a stillborn deformed baby the shock this causes kills granny and drives Sarah to abandon her children to cope alone. Just as the children and Grandpa are on the verge of starvation Pa reappears with food and a 'Surprise'. He has made arrangements to sell his children for $500 each. When Keith and Jane her youngest brother and sister are torn from her arms Heaven vows to some day reunite the family. Tom is sold to a farmer and Fanny to the preacher of the near by town, Heaven herself is sold to a couple from Atlanta.
Kitty and Cal Dennison seem a nice couple to begin with but soon Heaven is drawn in to a world where her new stepmother treats her like a slave and beats her mentally and physically, Cal who she had hoped would give her the fatherly love she has always wanted seduces her.
She escapes this period in her life when Kitty dies and now she is finally able to head to Boston and her true mothers family.
I don’t want to spoil the story for any one who decides to read it themselves so I will just add that in the next 4 books you discover how truth and lies, hope and disappointment, trust and betrayal affect not just Heaven but her daughter and granddaughter.
A story that will touch your heart. 

• Paperback
• 410 pages
• Published in 1985
• Book has brown stain marks on outside pages
• Picture for reference only