Pearl in the Mist - Virginia Andrews

Reading Challenge Category: Second book in the series

Official Blurb:

Fate has whisked Ruby Landry from a simple life in the Louisiana bayou. But her new riches bring more treachery than happiness.
After a year spent living in his splendid New Orleans mansion, Ruby is still rejoicing in the love of the father she had never known. But she has some venomous enemies in the household: her stepmother Daphne, who sneers at her backwater upbringing, and her twin sister Gisselle, who is full of bitterness and backstabbing.
Ruby hopes she will find some peace at the exclusive girls' boarding school her father has chosen for her. But the legendarily strict headmistress, Mrs Ironwood, plots with her stepmother to make Ruby's life a misery. Still Ruby doesn't lose hope - until a terrible tragedy leaves her all alone, forcing her to summon every last ounce of strengh to reclaim her home, her future and the happiness she once knew.

My Thoughts:

This is the second in the series, and I started it straight after finishing the first. Once again, I have been swept along into another outlandish Virginia Andrews world.
This has all the ingredients needed for this author: hardships, rags to riches, a sweet teacher that means well, a cripple, incestuous behaviour and a wicked stepmother. There are a lot of similarities between this and the Casteel and Dollenganger series, as I mentioned in my review of the first book. As these are my favourite books ever, it is inevitable that I will compare the different stories.
This book concentrates on Ruby and Giselle (her twin sister), who have been sent off to a boarding school to get away from daphne, their stepmother. Much of the book concentrates on their trials and tribulations in living in such a strict environment, and Ruby is prejudged due to her background.
It is only the ending where the book kicks off and sets the scene for the next book in the instalment. I did feel like the book was a little repetitive and predictable. However, this didn’t stop me from rushing through it. At this point, I feel attached to Ruby; I know I will cry if something happens to her, and I’m sure again at the end of this series.
I didn’t even wait half an hour before picking up book three.