V.C. Andrews, born Cleo Virginia Andrews on June 6, 1923, in Portsmouth, Virginia, was an American novelist whose Gothic family sagas made her one of the most widely read authors of the late twentieth century. She is best known for the Dollanganger series, beginning with Flowers in the Attic, which wove together themes of family secrets, forbidden love, and psychological horror. Andrews died of breast cancer on December 19, 1986, in Virginia Beach, Virginia, at the age of 63.