Book Log #22: Four and Twenty Blackbirds, by Cherie Priest

[annathepiper]

I have come to the realization that although I would never live in the South again if you paid me, this does not mean that the South has left me. I apparently seriously dig me some Southern Gothic-flavored stories--well, I kind of knew this already, what with having read Charlaine Harris so much, as well as Ivy Cole and the Moon last year. It was however with great pleasure that I tackled cmpriest's Four and Twenty Blackbirds, especially after I discovered that she used to live in Chattanooga.

'Cause y'know what? So did I, for about six months. Seattle is the land that I've Recognized, to swipe a concept from Elfquest--but Kentucky and Tennessee? That's still the land of my birth. And there's so much fucked-up family history all over the South that it's a gold mine of story fodder, especially if you write dark fantasy or horror.

So yeah, I dived quite happily into Four and Twenty Blackbirds and enjoyed it quite a bit. The plot's not complex--pretty much Girl Sees Ghosts, Girl Delves into Her Mysterious Background, Girl Must Deal With Seriously Creepy Shit That Goes Down as a Result. But what drives this story for me is the atmosphere and the characters. As one who hails from that land, I'm here to tell you--this book gets it right. Which makes the aforementioned Creepy Shit that much more effective.

This is also exactly the kind of horror novel I like. There's no gratuitous gore; blood is made that much more unsettling by how sparingly it appears. The tension comes from the uncertainty of Eden's explorations into her past--as well as her own nature--and the murkiness of the motives of those she comes across. Threads of history both recent and far past weave together into what for me was an excellent payoff at the end as the appropriate secrets are revealed.

And just for a kicker, I was so entertained by this book that I only realized today, a couple days after finishing it up, that there wasn't a breath of romantic entanglement anywhere in the plot. This doesn't happen very often at all in my usual reading fare; when it does, it always leaves me vaguely disappointed, romantic sucker that I am. But for this story? This wasn't a flaw. There just was no need for such things here; it was great the way it was. Four stars.

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Is not Seattle also the land that cmpriest has Recognised? Is there some secret choo-choo line that smuggles writers out of Chattanooga and deposits them in the PNW...?

[annathepiper]

She has indeed moved up here. :) Of course, she came straight here, as far as I know; me, I bounced back to Kentucky for a while first.

[bloody-keri.livejournal.com]

I LOVED this when I read it early last year!! I gave it a stellar review. There are two additional books featuring Eden, I believe, although the titles escape me at the moment and I haven't read them yet.

"there wasn't a breath of romantic entanglement anywhere in the plot" - that might be what I liked MOST about it!!! ROFLLLL

[annathepiper]

Wings to the Kingdom and Birds of a Feather. I have already looked at them in the store. ;) I'll definitely be buying these as soon as I can.