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 ( )

"Four and Twenty Blackbirds" is more creepy than horrifying, but it's a constant creeping dread, even when you figure out much of what's going on before the protagonist does. An odd decision by one of the characters later on in the book saps some of the tension out as it doesn't seem to be justified by anything other than narrative necessity, but the climax is still gripping.

Cherie Priest's horror novel follows the seemingly haunted Eden, as she grows up in an adopted family, in atmosphere suffused with family secrets. Secrets tied to why a man attempted to kill her when she was still a child, and who exactly the ghosts haunting her - or protecting her - are. Priest keeps up the tension surrounding the central mystery, but the physical threat to Eden is never entirely convincing until it gets ratcheted up at the end; and the incompetence of the police is odd. It's still a good horror novel, with blood and family center stage. ( )

I really like Cherie's blog (cmpriest on livejournal), so I decided to check out one of her books. This will make her the third author whose books I read after I was already a fan of their blog. I am not a big fan of horror, though, so I made my sister read it first, so she could tell me if I'd be able to read it or not.

Eden is an orphan who occasionally sees the ghosts of her dead relatives, has a cousin who keeps trying to kill her, and that's just the beginning of her family dysfunctions. She finds out just how crazy it all is when she starts probing into her family's past - but if she hadn't, things could have turned out a whole lot worse...

I did like it, although not quite as much as I expected. Eden never seemed to take much of anything seriously, and the book was in first person, so the whole book had a rather sarcastic tone and a pretty even level of emotion. Which on the one hand, meant it wasn't especially scary, even for a horror-phobe like me, but on the other hand...it felt like it should have been scarier. ( )

Spooky and excellently written. Best read at 3 in the morning for full effect. ( )

Good Gothicky Southern horror. Eden sees dead people. More specifically she sees three sisters killed by one man. She first knew about them when she drew a picture of them in school. She is a strange child. Eventually she's called to the guidance counselor's office for a chat (a few years later) during which she has a vision and ends up doing a little physical harm to the counselor during the vision.

Eden also knows things most people don't. She knows she's lived before. She knows her mother was taken to a place she calls Pine Trees and there died, leaving Eden to be raised by her aunt Lulu and eventually her Uncle Dave. After an attempt on her life by a boy who refers to her as Avery, Eden learns there's quite a bit more to her family than Lulu will tell her (Lulu keeps insisting she'll tell Eden when Eden is older).

After a trip through an abandoned asylum, a brief stay at a Southern mansion, a trip to St. Augustine, Florida, and eventually an encounter in the swamps of Florida, Eden discovers exactly who John Gray was and what he means to her family, and to her.

My sister found this creepier than I did. I'm not sure if I'm just jaded, or if it's because she lives in the South and I have no experience of it. I must say that horror set in the northeast gets to me more, so it may be a place thing. Though I am also affected by horror set in the UK... ( )

This is a writer I happily add to my "must buy whatever she writes" list. I'll be getting the sequels to this book as they come out (it's a trilogy), and most likely, anything else she writes. It's a beautiful tale that kept me turning the pages, and I recommend it to everyone (even if you hate reading the first person pov). Just go to Amazon. Read those first pages. And if you aren't enchanted or at least the tiniest bit interested, I don't know what's wrong with you. :)

For a full review, which may or may not include spoilers, click here: http://calico-reaction.livejournal.co... ( )

I read this in one sitting because I didn't want to put it down. Would I recommend it? Yes -- to those who like a good ghost story (such as myself). This is not quite as deep or as chilling as many of the ghost stories in my collection (for example, The House That Jack Built by Graham Masterson is one of the creepiest ghost stories ever which scared the crap out of me when I read it) but it's pretty good.

A brief synopsis: Eden Moore has known ghosts all of her life. They talk to her and they protect her from harm when her life is threatened. But underneath it all, she doesn't really know who these ghosts are and why they are attached to her specifically. Eden is being raised by Lulu, her aunt, who does know the answers but won't tell. When Eden is old enough, she goes in search of information about her mother, who ended her life in a terrible place called Pine Breeze, and what she finds leads her to a destiny that only she can fulfill.

I thought it was fun and the supernatural elements were done well. At places in the story I thought things turned out a little too coincidental & too pat and I had to keep notes as to exactly who was related to whom as it got sort of complicated. But considering it is her first novel, I think she did a great job. ( )

http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2005/12... ( )

http://www.intergalacticmedicineshow.... ( )

This is Version 2 of this book, and the author's preferred one. Highly recommended. ( )

Four & Twenty Black birds isn't incredible, but it's definitely got merit. Solid debut, for sure. I thought the beginning of the book was spot-on, but the end is a little iffy.

I came upon 4&20BB by happenstance, but I now read everything Cherie Priest writes (blog(s) too). Simply put, I think she's kickass and sensible, and I almost never knew she existed! ( )

This is version 1; Version 2 (the 2005) version is much closer to what Cherie wanted the text to be, so buy that instead. ( )