Heaven: Casteel, Book 1

This is my all-time favourite book, and I read it at least every other year. So, of course, I had to choose it for my reading challenge of ‘your favourite book’. It’s been strange though because since I have been reading books more intensely the past two years and writing reviews, I’ve been apprehensive about revisiting ‘Heaven’. What if it isn’t as good as some of the books I’ve discovered? What if because I know what’s going to happen I read it really slowly, and it doesn’t grip me anymore? So I’ve been putting off reading it all year, but then the past couple of weeks I felt the story calling to me as it has in the past when I’ve reread it. So I knew it was time!Well, after finishing it, it is certainly still my favourite book. It was like revisiting visions of a past life. Terrible things happen in the book, so it’s like remembering bad memories that you’ve lived through. I knew what was coming at each juncture, and I could feel myself welling up before anything had happened. These characters feel like an extension to my being, and when they hurt, I hurt. I know this sounds melodramatic, but that’s what this book does to me. Not just this book, I have realised but the entire series. I thought I might get away with just reading ‘Heaven’ on its own and maybe revisit the other four next year some time. Nope, picked up book two straight after finishing this one, I couldn’t wait. Be dammed all the books I am committed to reading; they are going to have to wait.I did go into the book with new, more experienced reading eyes. Knowing that I was going to have to write this review made me evaluate what it is that fascinates me about the story. I still don’t think I know just that I had a lump in my throat the entire time I was reading and was getting goosebumps. The characters are just so likeable. They aren’t supposed to be, they are the lowest of the low, but what they have to endure is just so harrowing. I’d forgotten how distressing and heartbreaking parts of the story were. The entire story captures you and takes you along the journey with the Casteel children. I kept remembering what is going to happen in the subsequent books, and I think it is the story as a whole that keeps me coming back to these books time and time again. I know when I have finished book five, I am going to be broken. Last time I read it I sobbed for ages afterwards and I don’t expect this time to be any different.So, yes, this book is still my all-time favourite, and it makes my top five reads for this year. That feels a bit like cheating putting it in there, as it was guaranteed to make it, but it is well deserved as well!

This is the first time reading this book and I loved it. Had me wanting to continue reading. Struggled to put this book down and it’s not often a book does this for me.Highly recommend. Hope the rest of the Casteel series is as good.

I first read this trilogy around 18 years ago when I was only 15....loved them then. Then I saw them for the kindle and decided to read them again as I couldn't really remember the whole story.I wasn't disappointed. I was enthralled throughout and read the trilogy in about a week ( I clearly have no life ).The story of Heaven Leigh Casteel kept my attention as Andrews pulls you in with the descriptions of the family and the landscapes surrounding them, making you want to carry on until the very end.A real page turner.

Just like the flowers in. The wind set, as soon as I started this book I couldn't put it down just finished and looking forward to reading dark angel.

Brilliant book and will buy the rest of books in series!

This is a gripping novel that I could not put down. Reading about all of the suffering of the Casteel children is heartbreaking, but Heaven can be an annoying main character at times. It is a typical Virigina Andrews novel, although it is not as captivating as Flowers in the Attic.

I read this for the first time as a teenager, and then again many times over the next 20 years. It's a truly breathtaking story, I can never put it down once I begin. It's the kind of book you start at 8pm, look up and its 3am. Straight away you need to read the next in the saga. A book that has clearly stood the test of time. I defy anyone not to love heaven

Great storyline so much so that I couldnt put the book down.