I have a love/hate relationship with horror. I don’t want to be completely freaked out, reading only a page or two at a time and peeking at those from between my fingers, and yet horror that doesn’t fill you with some dread is probably not very good. Cherie Priest’s Four and Twenty Blackbirds sat in that "middle" ground fairly well for me and I quite enjoyed the story.

Full review: http://reading.kingrat.biz/reviews/fo... ( )

Eden Moore grew up knowing that the three ghostly women who always hovered somewhere near were tasked with protecting here. For a long time, she believed they were protecting her from her Tatie Eliza and her cousin Malachi who attempted to kill her when she was younger, both believing her to be as wicked as her great-grandfather. She should have felt at peace with the protection of the women, but dreams of a mysterious book with a severed hand at the back and the mystery surrounding her Mother's death and those of the three women pique her curiosity. She sets out on a dangerous course through an abandoned hospital and her Tatie Eliza's antebellum mansion to discover the truth about herself and her family before the past comes to take control of her.

Cherie Priest's debut novel is pure Southern gothic horror, complete with a crumbling mansion filled with family secrets as well as hidden rooms, a hospital haunted not just by the history of what happened there but by an angry spirit sent to harm the heroine, a creepy swamp, ghosts both good and bad, and dark magic. Her heroine, Eden Moore, is smart, strong-willed, no-nonsense and incredibly likable. Tatie Eliza and cousin Malachi are the perfect obstacles for her, blinded by family birthright, tradition and the belief that what they are doing is just. When Tatie smiles at Eden, you can feel the hatred dripping from her lips.

I also liked the pacing. Nothing seemed to drag and the action/suspense had me reading every word to make sure I didn't miss anything (instead of glossing over them like I sometimes do when I feel the book needs to be moving a bit faster).

"Four and Twenty Blackbirds" is a fun story, filled with action and supernatural thrills that I think fans of ghost stories and horror novels should take a chance to read. ( )

Reading Cherie Priest is a lot like having a friend who tells the best stories that you never get tired of. Fast-pasted, this book never let me down and I look forward to reading more. ( )

The premise of this one is pleasantly creepy, and the childhood scenes are excellent. Once Eden grows up, however, the tension slacks quite a bit and there are a lot of scenes of the "driving around and asking people questions" type. I didn't find Eden very interesting as a character, and the character of Harry is a throwaway. Still, the scene at the abandoned asylum is terrific and the climactic scene in which the ghosts reenact their old crimes is great. ( )

Creepy, twisty, and full of atmosphere, this story was good, scary fun. I really liked Eden. While she does have suspiciously useful poetry, knife, and car identification skills, she was a believable characters, and pulled me along on her search for answers in deeply held family secrets.
The beginning scenes from her childhood didn't rig quite true for me, but once it settled into present time, I started to care for Eden and her adopted parents. I look forward to the next instalment.
The landscape is particularly well used to add to the growing tension in the story - forest, swamp, old family graveyard, gothic mansion, and abandoned institution, all these clichéd settings were given fresh life, and described so clearly I could smell them ( )