Wow. Almost done with the Dollangangers, thank goodness. Only two books left to cover in this series, and this one is probably going to be the most difficult to write about. Why difficult? Because it sucked. Seriously. This book was terrible. Combine all of the horribly tragic events of the first two books into one, add Chris and Cathy as an old married couple and you have this dreck.
Seeds of Yesterday starts up 15 years after If There Be Thorns, when Corrine died in the after the fire, we find out that she left the entire Foxworth fortune to Jory and Bart. Heh, good thing John Amos actually did die in that fire, or he’d have been pissed! The manor that was burnt down at the end of Petals on the Wind has been rebuilt in its entirety and some old guy who was previously thought to be dead (one of Corrine’s brothers) has returned from some monastery in the Alps to be the creepy guy that’s always whispering in Bart’s ear.
Jory gets paralyzed while dancing at Bart’s birthday party. Someone set him up to have a horrible accident, thinking he’d likely die. Oh noes! He was dancing with his “sister” (remember Cindy, the adopted one?) because his wife (Melodie, another prima ballerina) is pregnant and didn’t want to jeopardize her pregnancy.
Pretend this is Jory, and one of these pillars crushed his legs.
Sooooo…she doesn’t want to jeopardize her pregnancy by dancing with her husband at her brother-in-law’s birthday party, but guess what she will do? Sleep with said brother-in-law while her husband is in critical condition in the hospital! Yeah, right? Cathy catches Bart and Melodie drinking and whooping it up while her oldest son is trying not to kill himself like his daddy did. Jeeeez.
Cindy is super slutty. Really, she is. She invites some guy home for Christmas, promising her parents they’ll be good, but they get caught in bed together. Too enraptured to even notice or slow their stride, Cindy gets pulled off the guy and screams about how unfair her family is and how they shouldn’t treat her like a baby because she’s SIXTEEN NOW, DAMNIT! She gets caught with another guy later in the story, but I will probably forget about it by the time I get there, so I’m telling you now.
Melodie starts showing, so Bart discards her like milk that’s a week past its expiration date. She goes into labour at home, but decides not to tell anyone for some stupid reason, and by the time everyone finds out, it’s too late to get her to a hospital. She has twins. Had no idea there was more than one fetus, because even though this is supposed to take place sometime in the 90s, her doctor couldn’t tell.
She takes off, abandoning her children and her paraplegic husband because she just can’t handle it anymore, and she wants to go back to dancing. We find out later that she married another dancer right after her divorce papers are signed. Fuuuuuuuu, all women in this series are just unbelievable strumpets. It kind of blows my mind.
I know the older couple is Chris and Cathy, and the littlies are Jory's kids...but I'm not sure who the ghostly figure is or if the young blonde is supposed to be Cindy or Melodie?
So, Cathy is pretty much a mommy to the twins, Cory and Carrie Darren and Diedre after they’re abandoned by their real mommy (sound familiar?). Bart starts sleeping with the nanny/nurse that was hired to help take care of Jory and his kids…but Cathy still wipes his tush because he’s too embarrassed to have the pretty nurse help him out with that. O.o
Bart and the creepy old guy, Malcolm John Amos Joel, are taking the twins off into the chapel located at the manor and teaching them all of the horrible things that Chris and Cathy heard from the grandmother while they were locked up upstairs. They are of the Devil’s Seed and were from a garden that should never have been planted, blahblahblah. Cathy freaks out and tells the nurse (that is now interested in JORY) to never let the twins out of her sight anymore because they’re being corrupted by her son that’s gone over the edge.
(Oh, I think I forgot to mention that if Bart is ever institutionalized for anything, he loses his entire inheritance, so he’s gotta try to keep it together in order to keep his money.)
Creepy old Joel dies of cancer at some point, Chris and Cathy are going to move out of the mansion – taking Jory, the twins and the nurse with them – but before they can…Chris is killed in an accident on a snowy road. No, I don’t think he got pushed off a cliff by a unicorn-riding dodo bird, but I’m pretty sure there was a shark attack in there somewhere.
Edited post just to add this picture, because it's too awesome to leave out. Thanks, Meg! <3
Cathy is found up in the attic by one of the servants with a note in her hand, saying that she didn’t want to live any longer without her beloved brother/husband beside her anymore.
You know, every time I would start to empathize with Cathy, or feel bad for her…I’d remember that she spent the majority of her adult life married to her brother and that her parents were also related. That ruined it. Too much ick factor.
Yuck.
Last book (huzzah!) coming up on Tuesday.
YESSSSSSSSSS!
I always assumed it was Cindy and some sort of symbolic ghost of Malcolm. As in, even though he was long dead, he was some sick puppet master.
What’s up with Joel spewing that crap? What’s his interest? Did he hear that growing up? I can’t remember. I guess I’ll find out Tuesday!
I get the sense the once Andrews takes a liking to a specific thing, she just keeps writing about it.
“She’s a ballerina… and she’s a ballerina… and she’s ALSO a ballerina…”
And of course she didn’t know she was carrying twins, it’s not like the ultrasound was invented in the 1950s or anything.
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Any dodo can surf the shark, but can he hang ten? I don’t think so…
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