title: Lightning Strikes (Hudson Family)
author:  V.C. Andrews 
description: V.C. Andrews novels have been a bestselling phenomenon since the publication of<i>Flowers in the Attic</i>, first in the renowned Dollanganger series, which includes<i>Petals on the Wind</i>,<i>If There Be Thorns</i>,<i>Seeds of Yesterday</i>, and<i>Garden of Shadows</i>. The family saga continues with<i>Christophers Diary: Secrets of Foxworth</i>, <i>Christophers Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger</i>, and<i>Secret Brother</i>, and will continue with<i>Beneath the Attic</i>next fall as part of the fortieth anniversary celebration. There are now more than seventy V.C. Andrews novels, which have sold over 106 million copies worldwide and have been translated into twenty-five foreign languages. Join the conversation about the world of V.C. Andrews at Facebook.com/OfficialVCAndrews.
zlib_text: # Lightning Strikes
  
  
  Hudson #2  
  V.C. Andrews  
  Copyright (c) 2000  
  ISBN: 0671007696  
  .
  
  
  Prologue  
  .  
  Sometimes in the early evening when the
  
  
  shadows deepened and thickened in the corners of rooms within Grandmother
  Hudson's mansion, I would hear soft whispering. It wasn't something I heard
  when I first arrived, but it was something I was hearing more and more now.
  The whispers sounded like voices warning me, but about what, I wondered. What?
  
  
  Back in Washington, D.C., Mama had finally revealed the truth of my birth: my
  real mother was a rich white woman who had gotten pregnant with me in college.
  Her boyfriend at the time was a black man named Larry Ward, and after I was
  born my real mother's father had made the arrangements for me to live with Ken
  and Latisha Arnold. Ken had been paid well for it. I grew up thinking Beni
  Arnold was my younger sister and Roy Arnold was my older brother.
  
  
  After Beni had been murdered by gang members and Mama had told me the truth
  about myself