History Literature / LandrySeries

* CoolLoser: In spite of being beautiful, honest, sweet-natured, and talented, Ruby is seen as a country bumpkin by her schoolmates.

* BastardBoyfriend: Beau Andreas isn't much better than the others considering how he can easily switch back and forth from Giselle to Ruby to Giselle and back to Ruby. He also was the one who more or less orchestrated the plan to switch the twins in ''All That Glitters'', with Ruby going along with the plan, in spite of her marriage to Paul, so that her daughter can be with her natural father.

* HealingHands: Grandmere Catherine is a ''traiteur,'' a Cajun healer who works with a combination of folk-medicine and faith-healing, curing not only physical ailments but spiritual ones.

The second book, ''Pearl in the Mist'', continues Ruby's story with her spectacularly rotten New Orleans relatives. After her father Pierre dies, Ruby is left in the hands of her WickedStepmother Daphne, who would like nothing more than for both of her husband's children to disappear. Daphne ships the twins to a BoardingSchoolOfHorrors, where Giselle, now wheelchair-bound, gleefully goes about ruining Ruby's reputation. [[TeenPregnancy Ruby finds herself pregnant]] from a fling with Giselle's longtime boyfriend Beau and ends up fleeing back to the swamps to save her baby, the titular Pearl.

* TwinSwitch: A plot point in every single book [[spoiler: until Giselle's death]]. In ''Ruby,'' Giselle convinces Ruby it would be funny to do this, only to turn the joke back on Ruby when she plays Ruby as a naive country bumpkin who sleeps around. In ''Pearl in the Mist,'' [[spoiler: wheelchair-bound Giselle secretly regains the ability to walk and passes herself off as her mobile sister in order to seduce a man while incriminating Ruby so they can ''both'' be kicked out of school.]] In ''All the Glitters,'' [[spoiler: Ruby herself assumes Giselle's identity while Giselle is in a coma in order to be with Beau.]]

* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: Thankfully subverted. [[spoiler: As a young child, Louis was sexually molested by his mother. As an adult he experiences deep shame and guilt, believing he was partially responsible for the abuse because his mother taught him to equate [[NotIfTheyEnjoyedItRationalization arousal with affection]].]] Hearing his story, Ruby immediately realizes that what happened was wrong and that Louis was not at fault.

* AngstySurvivingTwin: [[spoiler: After his twin Jean dies, Pierre loses the will to live.]]

** Daphne and Octavius have a daughter named Toby.

* OneSteveLimit: Averted with Grandpere Jack and Jack Clovis

** Giselle is disabled in a car accident and uses a wheelchair. [[spoiler: She secretly relearns how to walk and uses this to get Ruby thrown out of school by letting herself be seen in places off-limits to students. After all, if one of the Landry twins is seen walking around, it must be Ruby, right?]]

* TwinSwitch: A plot point in every single book [[spoiler: until Giselle's death]]. In ''Ruby,'' Giselle convinces Ruby it would be funny to do this, only to turn the joke back on Ruby when she plays Ruby as a naive country bumpkin who sleeps around. In ''Pearl in the Mists,'' [[spoiler: wheelchair-bound Giselle secretly regains the ability to walk and passes herself off as her mobile sister in order to seduce a man while incriminating Ruby]] In ''All the Glitters,'' [[spoiler: Ruby herself assumes Giselle's identity while Giselle is in a coma in order to be with Beau.]]

* TheVamp: Giselle Dumas.
* WickedStepmother: Daphne.

** Paul in ''All That Glitters'' after Ruby leaves him for Beau which [[spoiler: leads to his death via drowning in the swamp]]. Beau devolves into this in ''Hidden Jewel'' when Ruby leaves for the swamp and he winds up with a broken leg after falling down from drinking too much.

* TheAlcoholic: Paul in ''All That Glitters'' after Ruby leaves him for Beau which [[spoiler: leads to his death via drowning in the swamp]]. Beau devolves into this in ''Hidden Jewel'' when Ruby leaves for the swamp and he winds up with a broken leg after falling down from drinking too much.

In spite of some of the more outlandish aspects (the {{Sequelitis}} grows exponentially as the series goes on), the Landry Series is largely regarded as one of the best-written of the ghostwritten series and was very well-received by most fans. A TV miniseries based on the Landry books has languished in DevelopmentHell since the late 1990s but was resurrected by Lifetime Television and slated to be released in 2020, only to be waylaid by the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic. In January of 2021, Lifetime announced that the adaptation will finally air in March.

* ProtagonistCenteredMorality: Because the books are told in Ruby's point of view, some of her more negative qualities are glossed over like how she stole her sister's boyfriend (and got pregnant by him), put a voodoo curse on Giselle, deceived her half brother Paul and took advantage of his affection for her, and has a blind devotion to a man who she easily forgives for abandoning her and their child.

** Lest we forget Grandpere Jack in both ''Ruby'' and ''Tarnished Gold'' who goes from merely embarrassing Gabrielle at her high school graduation and extorting money from her rapist to trying to sell his granddaughter to another drunk to pay off his gambling debts.

* OneSteveLimit: Averted with Grandpere Jack and Jack Cloves

* SatelliteLoveInterest: Paul Tate, Beau Andreas, and Jack Cloves.

* LoveMotherLoveDaughter: "Love" is certainly stretching it but Buster Trahaw settles for abducting Pearl in ''Hidden Jewel'' when he can't get his hands on Ruby who was originally promised to him by Grandpere Jack.

* SatelliteLoveInterest: Paul Tate and Beau Andreas.

** Pearl's name comes from the Parable of the Pearl and also seems to be a shout-out to Literature/TheScarletLetter since she, too, was born out of wedlock and both were named for the very same parable.

* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: Thankfully subverted. [[spoiler: As a young child, Louis was sexually molested by his mother. As an adult he experiences deep shame and guilt, believing he was partially responsible for the abuse because his mother taught him to equate [[NotIfTheyEnjoyedItRationale arousal with affection]].]] Hearing his story, Ruby immediately realizes that what happened was wrong and that Louis was not at fault.

* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: Thankfully subverted. [[spoiler: While it's unclear if he was raped, Louis was clearly sexually molested by his mother and still blames himself, as he was a young child who loved his mother and regarded the abuse as a form of affection.]] Hearing his story, Ruby immediately realizes that what happened was wrong and that Louis was not at fault.

* OlderThanTheyLook: Ruby believes Louis is around her own age and is shocked to learn he's thirty.

** Louis, who is blind, begins to recover his sight after his interactions with Ruby. In ''All That Glitters'', he's brought in as a SurpriseWitness to attest to her identity, since he learned to identify Ruby and Giselle by their voices rather than their identical faces.

* BrainsBrawnAndBeauty: Drawing from the above, it seems that among Ruby's children, Pierre is the Brains, Jean is the Brawn, and Pearl the Beauty. Partially subverted, as Pearl is really a Beauty with Brains who plans to go to medical school, though people assume she's [[BrainlessBeauty too pretty to be so smart.]]

* ByronicHero: Again, Louis, who went blind after witnessing his parents's death, lives his life in a lonely, gloomy mansion, refusing visitors and composing gloomy music. It's later revealed [[spoiler:that his blindness is psychosomatic, due to the guilt of being sexually molested by his mother.]]
** In the first novel, Ruby briefly becomes a Betty to Giselle's Veronica for Beau.

* TheVamp: Giselle Dumas.

* MommasBoy: Paul Tate.