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Four and Twenty Blackbirds | 
| Manufacturer: Tor Books
Category: EBooks
List Price: $14.00
Buy New: $0.00
You Save: $14.00 (100%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  79 reviews
Sales Rank: 25
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Edition: 1st Tor Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
ASIN: B0015UB0ZS
Publication Date: March 11, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
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Product Description
The classic Southern gothic gets an edgy modern makeover in Priest's debut novel about a young woman's investigation into the truth of her origins. What Eden Moore digs up in the roots of her diseased family tree takes her across the South, from the ruins of the Pine Breeze sanitarium in Tennessee to a corpse-filled swamp in Florida, and back in time to the Civil War, when the taint in her family bloodline sets in motion events building only now to a supernatural crescendo. Priest adds little new to the gothic canon, but makes neo-goth chick Eden spunky enough to deal with a variety of clich? menaces?a scheming family matriarch, a brooding Poe-esque mansion and a genealogy greatly confused with inbreeding?that would have sent the genre's traditional wilting violets into hysterics. Eden is a heroine for the aging Buffy crowd, and her adventures will play best to postadolescent horror fans.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 74 more reviews...
 Awesome read ! July 26, 2008
I'm discovering a lot of new authors with my new Kindle. I've had it only 2 weeks and already read like 10 new books. This book was great. It drew me into the story right away, I couldn't put it down.
 Intriguing Tale with a Few Loose Ends May 26, 2008
I was on the fence between giving this 3 stars or 4 and went for the 4. This was a great read, I like stories with geneaological backgrounds. It reminded me a bit of Monsters of Templeton....what disappointed me in the end was (at least for me), the author failed to tie it all together. I would have enjoyed one of the characters doing a quick explainer of how everything tied together in the end. Part of it may have been that I was reading the Kindle edition, and therefore have a hard time searching back to look up references to history / kinship,I had the same problem reading Monsters of Templeton. I'm still a little fuzzy on how the family relationships in this novel shook out. Even a little family tree at the end of the book would have helped me. Overall, though, this book grabbed me and kept me intrigued to the last pages.
So many twists and turns...keeps you from putting it down May 25, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
When I first started reading this book, I had mixed feelings. I wasn't sure where this story was going or if I even wanted to finish it. But I am really glad that it became so, that I didn't want to put it down. This is one southern gothic-horror/mystery that I will always remember, that is for sure.
The story starts out by introducing Eden Moore, a little girl who sees ghosts. Eden is haunted by the images in her mind and as a small child she doesn't understand exactly what they mean. She starts to draw what she sees, which is turned over the the school officials. During a meeting with this official...a simple hand gesture is the start of a whirlwind of events for Eden. The sudden hand motions trigger something in her mind, an image from her dreams, and she acts out violently toward him. That is where the story starts to become more clear for me. She sees these ghosts and hears them speak as well. She is unable to get answers from her Aunt as to who these ghosts are...three women. The plot thickens. It becomes so fast paced and the images become more pronounced. A cousin, who has tried to repeatedly murder Eden, becomes somewhat of a physco character. Appearing and reappearing. You don't know when he will appear again or what else he will try to do to Eden. It fills the reader with guessing. Just when you think you know where it is heading, it takes a whole different turn. Eden is a strong willed, determined young woman who doesn't quit turning up stones of her family history, of a mother she never knew, a past that she has been warned will only cause her more heartache. A past that could very well be the end to Eden. And her family...but Eden doesn't know that this could be the end for her or her family. Not until the very...end! She discovers so much more than she ever thought possible. Her childhood dreams become reality. The three ghosts become reality...the reality of who they really are. The "magic" of the past almost destroys the entire family of Eden and their history came close to be rewritten into one horrible, unthinkable furture....but Eden doesn't give up and the ending will surprise you as it did me....
I thought with each page I could figure out Edens past and the secrets, but each time I was wrong. But as the end of the story approached, I got the feeling that there should have been just a tad more to it. I, like other readers, feel that the end of the book was rushed. The novel is very descriptive. The horror of it all was great...but I just felt that the end didn't quite do justice to the novel like it deserved. However,it is incredible the way Cherie Priest is able to write with such imagery.
Creepy Horror May 25, 2008
"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.
"Mae's warning was too late." March 11, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Cherie Priest is a noted blogger and a success story for writers who see blogging as a way to get on the radar. I had been a little bit reluctant to give her book a try. Largely, this is because the last blog-to-book thing that I read disappointed me quite a bit. I find that the diction of good diarists often does not work well in a novel. In that sense, this book was a pleasant surprise.
Four and Twenty Blackbirds introduces Eden Moore. Eden sees ghosts, and has done since she was a small child. There are more than one kind of ghosts, however, and it is people from real life who send Eden hunting in the past. Her life and the life of her sister depend on her success.
Four and Twenty Blackbirds is one part horror, one part detective story, one part literary fiction. It reminded me a little bit of Eva Moves the Furniture by Margaret Livesey. I liked that book quite a bit, so I did not mind the resemblance. It may, in truth, have only been the ghosts.
The prose is quite good, and I read it fairly compulsively. The plot is less even, and in moments where I was less enchanted by the writing I found myself getting a little bit annoyed by some of the plot holes. Eden is a very vibrant character. The backstory about the evil threat was oddly backgrounded. I understand that the length of the book has changed over several editions, and perhaps this accounts for some of the lacunae.
In any case, I really enjoyed the book. It kept me reading through a nasty hangover when all I really wanted to do was lay in bed and eat blueberries. I am particularly looking forward to reading the next book. I have a hope that as a second novel it will be more evenly plotted, given that Priest would have known where it was going to be placed.
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