vcandrewsreviews

[vcandrewsreviews]

Losing Spring - The Sutherland Series - Book 1

VC Andrews

Rating: 0 stars

By now, the company should really put the ghostwriter out into the field of retirement. The man continues to write female characters poorly, and this churned out novel is no different. Admittedly, he attempted in the beginning with the remaining books in the Casteel series (Gates of Paradise was clearly all him) and The Cutler Series (there were some glaring plot points that made no sense), and the Landry Series (that was Casteel 2.0 whereas the Hudson series was Cutler 2.0 with plots from the Casteel recycled).

Caroline Bryer is the main character in Losing Spring. You'll be forgiven for thinking she's much younger than she is due to how the ghostwriter seems to portray her, as you get the feeling she's a young girl of 7 or 8 (due to how she speaks and thinks) but instead is actually 15/16. Her parents' marriage is on its last leg. The love has left the room. Then, a neighbor passes away and in comes the deceased neighbor's wordly daughter who has been living in Paris to attend the funeral and help out her now widowed mother. She's a breath of fresh air for Caroline's mother, and the two are drawn to one another.

This is territory that the ghostwriter doesn't need to cover or even write about, as he mishandles it each and every time. And it's no different here, with the same bad writing. It ends with Caroline's mother and gf dying instead of going another route that would have opened up better plot directions, but no, kill the gays trope he embraces.

Caroline is spirited away to her grandparent's lavish estate though, if you're expecting gothic, sinister characters, don't hold your breath. The characters that inhabit the estate are cardboard and barely advance the story along other than the, wait for it, male cousin that takes too much interest in Caroline (which is recycled plot from Early Spring, only replace brother with male cousin) wondering if she inherited her mother's "bad behavior" which leads to Caroline's grandfather bringing in a psych doctor that basically is a whole conversion therapy plot even if she hasn't shown signs that she's interested in the same sex, her grandfather is just sure it's lurking there in Caroline.

In a rushed to the ending style that he's becoming famous for, the story concludes with Caroline doing as her grandfather wants of her to set up the next novel.

I'm not sure why some of the reviewers on Amazon are declaring this the best book (some were given ARC so they may want the train to keep going) under VCA's name when, no, it isn't. I don't even think these newer books she would have written or would have written in this style. She was ready to be done with children in peril by the time she was writing the Casteel series and was wanting to move on to horror and sci-fi/fantasy.

If A&E (the new owners of VCA's name and works) are going to continue to churn out novels under her name, then it's time to replace the current ghostwriter with a new one, a female, that won't be copying and pasting the same female character over and over with just a different name. VCA deserves better and so do the readers.