Winter Reads: Sage's Eyes by V.C. Andrews

Retail: $7.99; 400 pages

If you're an avid reader of this blog, then there's a good chance that you've seen a few reviews for V.C. Andrews' titles on here. My late grandmother was a big of V.C. Andrews' writings, well, up until she learned that the ghost writer that took over after the author's death in 1986 was in fact a male, Andrew Neiderman. After the that, my grandmother quit reading the books, with the last one in her collection being Willow (book one of the DeBeers series).

I now have all the books in my grandmother's collection. I continued to collect each new installment that is released; I even filled in the gaps by finding the rest of the books in the DeBeers and the Broken Wings series, which were missing from her collection.

While I still haven't read all the titles, my opinion of the ghost writer's writing has been mixed. There have been a few good stories and there has been several horrible entries, mostly due to the lack of a "Gothic" feel in the most recent releases.

Available today from Pocket Books is the standalone novel, Sage's Eyes (978-1451650914), which I had received an ARC copy a few months ago. I didn't care much for the last standalone book, Bittersweet Dreams, so I've been putting this book aside; waiting to the very last minute to read it. To my surprise, it's better written than the last few releases. While I would never call it "Gothic," it's not a bad read.

The plot centers on sixteen-year-old Sage, who from an early age has had a "third eye" gift. She can see things that others cannot as if she has lived a past life. Her adoptive parents have tried to hide her gifts from the outside world. Actually, they have convinced themselves that she just has an active imagination.

Sage has always been known as the 'weird' kid in school, well, that is until her parents decide to send her to a private school, where she befriends several teenage girls. Of course, she can't hide her sixth sense forever, which she starts to use on her friends and other students.

She wonder why she has these gifts, and if her birth parents had them as well. Though she isn't supposed to look into the file cabinets in her father's office, she comes across one of the drawers that has been left open. There she finds old, strange pictures that give her clues about the past and who she really is.

Final Thoughts: Like I already said above, I actually liked reading Sage's Eyes. It was better written than the recent ghost writer's entries. The supernatural plot might sound familiar, but it works well here; avoiding the typical cliches. Sage is an an interesting character that I instantly connected with. Overall, Sage's Eyes is an intriguing read.