Even though two of the three great novels of the ’70s horror boom featured female main characters (Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist), V. C. Andrews was the first female brand-name horror writer, capable of selling millions of books simply because her name was on the cover. It’s no accident that her style of horror was the one originally popularized by women: the gothic. Gothic horror was domestic horror in which affairs of the heart were as important as affairs of the flesh. Its subject matter was families, marriage, houses, children, insanity, and secrets.
