Darkest Hour

V.C. Andrews

***Growing up on the thriving plantation called The Meadows, Lillian Booth cherishes the brightest, happiest dreams....*** ***Lillian's world is full of grand parties, of sunshine and promises, as thrilling as the fairy tales*** Mama spins for her and her little sister, Eugenia. No one, not even her cold, stern Papa and her Bible spouting sister Emily, can crush her spirits -- until the day Emily reveals the shattering secret at Lillian's birth, a secret Mama sadly cannot deny. ***Still Lillian refuses to believe Emily's hateful claim that she is evil, a curse...even when sweet, gentle Eugenia loses her fragile hold on life, and Mama retreats further into her fantasies.*** But when tragedy befalls her best friend, the one boy whose tender heart mirrors her own, Lillian comes to believe Emily's grim words. Meekly, she endures her penance, finding a strange solace in the endless repetition of prayers in a room stripped of all comforts. ***Lillian's heart is torn anew when, in a drunken haze, Papa subjects her to the most brutal degradation.*** Then Papa loses The Meadows in a card game, and Lillian is faced with a new and terrifying prospect. Arrogant, handsome playboy Bill Cutler will return the plantation -- if Lillian will marry him! Now Lillian must leave her girlhood home behind, and make a bold new beginning as the mistress of a hotel called Cutler's Cove...