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72nd out of 784 books
—
613 voters
Four and Twenty Blackbirds (Eden Moore #1)
by
Cherie Priest (Goodreads Author)
Although she was orphaned at birth, Eden Moore is never alone. Three dead women watch from the shadows, bound to protect her from harm. But in the woods a gunman waits, convinced that Eden is destined to follow her wicked great-grandfather--an African magician with the power to curse the living and raise the dead.
Now Eden must decipher the secret of the ghostly trio befor...more
Now Eden must decipher the secret of the ghostly trio befor...more
Paperback, 288 pages
Published
October 1st 2005
by Tor Books
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I read a review that recommended this book to the "aging Buffy crowd". Not that I'm taking offense or anything . . . Despite that backhanded insult and being a big Buffy fan, that throw-away comment does a huge disservice to this book. There is nothing snarky or Buffy-like about it. I hope the reviewer isn't assuming all Buffy fans and teens are too simple to enjoy a mature ghost story because I've been enjoying this sort of thing since I was ten . . . End of rant.
This was a good old-fashioned,...more
This was a good old-fashioned,...more
9 likes · like · see review
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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 Cherie Priest's Four and Twenty Blackbirds, especially after I discovered that she used to live in Chattanoo...more
The creepist, strangest section of this book takes place in a bathroom at a summer camp. It does.
Of course, it could have been because I was reading it late at night, in bed, with the crazy homeless group across the street talking very, very, very loudly. (Yes, I know I should be more Christian and they're not harming anyone, but it is freaking midnight!).
Nah, it was creepy.
Four and Twenty Blackbirds introduces the reader to Eden Moore and her surprising large and very confusing family. Like a c...more
Of course, it could have been because I was reading it late at night, in bed, with the crazy homeless group across the street talking very, very, very loudly. (Yes, I know I should be more Christian and they're not harming anyone, but it is freaking midnight!).
Nah, it was creepy.
Four and Twenty Blackbirds introduces the reader to Eden Moore and her surprising large and very confusing family. Like a c...more
2 likes · like · see review
Another one I found underwhelming. Priest tries to capture a Southern Gothic atmosphere, and while she makes use of a lot of excellent, classic set pieces—swamps and cemeteries; abandoned hospitals and dark cellars—the first person narrative mostly failed to capture a sense of immediate terror or danger. Maybe this is because Eden, the protagonist, is so detached and hipstery—I guess it’s supposed to make her seem tough, but when she hardly seems to care what happens to her, it’s hard for me to....more
5 likes · like · see review
Sep 19, 2008
Katy
rated it
1 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
people in solitary confinement with nothing better to do
I read this book because it was a free download from amazon (Kindle) and I was back in the States and thought what the hell. The book was free, but that doesn't include the time I wasted reading it. The plot was "twisty", but in that bad way where it's just confusing and not really clear if the author herself knew exactly what was going on, or what she was trying to convey. It was not downright painful the entire time, just when the author tried to be clever.
I confess I downloaded the book becau...more
I confess I downloaded the book becau...more
Jul 31, 2008
John
rated it
2 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Highschoolers who need to read more...and like ghost stories
It's a Southern Gothic horror ghost tale that misfires more often than not.
Plus, this book has a very specific audience, in my opinion: high school junior girls who don't yet read much (i.e. just graduated from Young Adult fiction and need an intermediate step before trying adult literature)... and who relish the occasional, daring swear word sprinkled here and there for color.
That said, Priest does fabricate a few passages that fully come together to achieve that spine-tingling foreboding for...more
Plus, this book has a very specific audience, in my opinion: high school junior girls who don't yet read much (i.e. just graduated from Young Adult fiction and need an intermediate step before trying adult literature)... and who relish the occasional, daring swear word sprinkled here and there for color.
That said, Priest does fabricate a few passages that fully come together to achieve that spine-tingling foreboding for...more
Stories set in America's South always have a way of gripping me viscerally. I don't know whether it's a combination of the history or the mystery, or it's a bit of both. This is the first novel by Cherie Priest that I've read, and I've definitely fallen in love with her voice, and will go on to read more of her works.
Eden's always seen ghosts, and we follow her progress as she's raised by her aunt, and her family life is far from simple. There's a larger mystery in the picture, but Eden's got a...more
Eden's always seen ghosts, and we follow her progress as she's raised by her aunt, and her family life is far from simple. There's a larger mystery in the picture, but Eden's got a...more
1 like · like · see review
This was the first free ebook I received after signing up for Tor books’s new website. Without having any pretense of idea what the book was about, nor even having any bland reviewer quotes in the e-text, I just started reading. It’s a horror story about a woman who can see ghosts and on the search for information about her deceased mother discovers truths about her past that threaten her life and that of her aunt.
Right from the beginning, this book drew me in. The narrative told a crisp picture...more
Right from the beginning, this book drew me in. The narrative told a crisp picture...more
This book had all the classic elements of a spooky, mysterious book - swamps, crumbling hospital/asylum, ghosts, murderous relatives, and an unknown past. Like an adult version of Scooby-Doo almost, and I was (am) a huge Scooby Doo fan. And it had a few creepy moments- like a certain scene at a summer camp, and the vision of how the three women died. But the book itself fell flat. Eden was boring. She also seemed to be removed from her own life, and not really care about what is happening to her...more
Rating: 2.75* of five
The Book Report: In a fun twist on Haley Joel Osment's famous line, "I see dead people," young Eden discovers she can see and hear three dead women when they save her life, preventing her from being shot by an insane cousin who believes Eden to be the reincarnation of an evil figure from their shared family past. The dead women appear to Eden only at times of great danger and stress, which come increasingly often as she grows into a strange young womanhood. Her life's trajec...more
The Book Report: In a fun twist on Haley Joel Osment's famous line, "I see dead people," young Eden discovers she can see and hear three dead women when they save her life, preventing her from being shot by an insane cousin who believes Eden to be the reincarnation of an evil figure from their shared family past. The dead women appear to Eden only at times of great danger and stress, which come increasingly often as she grows into a strange young womanhood. Her life's trajec...more
Cherie Priest has written herself a pretty good novel (which I'll call "Southern Something"). There is much to like. In tapping into the rich literary gothic tradition of the South, she has come up with her own creation. The characters, Eden Moore, her aunt Lulu, stepfather Dave, all seem to come from the New South, a South that hangs out at coffee bars for poetry readings and listens to the B-52s or R.E.M. (or someone newer). But Tradition is still there - and characters like Eden's great aunt...more
Cherie Priest’s book was a huge disappointment to me. And it’s a book that makes me wonder about the ringing endorsements you find on book covers - because this book had them in spades. Even Ramsey Campbell, a writer I admire, had glowing praise for it, calling the book “breathlessly readable, palpably atmospheric and compellingly suspenseful.” I just don’t get it.
Orphaned at birth, Eden Moore lives with her aunt Louise and Uncle Dave. She’s a strange little girl, but it’s hardly her fault: she...more
Orphaned at birth, Eden Moore lives with her aunt Louise and Uncle Dave. She’s a strange little girl, but it’s hardly her fault: she...more
I read FOUR AND TWENTY BLACKBIRDS (what amounts for me in the slight amount of time I get to read) in practically one sitting. It was my bedside book and I stayed up late to read 'just one more page...no chapter..' and I woke early and really savored the quiet of everyone else sleeping in over the weekend so that I could finish the fab A KISS BEFORE THE APOCALYPSE and really dive into this Southern Gothic ghost story.
Eden Moore's always known she could talk to ghosts and they can talk to her. S...more
Eden Moore's always known she could talk to ghosts and they can talk to her. S...more
I'm very sad that GoodReads decided not to save my review when I clicked on "Save." But when the site thinks for the 8 hours while I'm sleeping and still doesn't get the thing saved, it isn't going to happen.
My sister gave this one to me as a gift – for what, exactly, I regret to admit that I don't remember. I think it was Christmas. Of 2011. But I can't be certain of anything. I'm the kind of person who ignore the books I own because library books have due dates and fines, and I check out lots...more
My sister gave this one to me as a gift – for what, exactly, I regret to admit that I don't remember. I think it was Christmas. Of 2011. But I can't be certain of anything. I'm the kind of person who ignore the books I own because library books have due dates and fines, and I check out lots...more
This is my first Cherie Priest book. Quite entertaining - liked the different slant in this horror/mystery genre with its mystic Southern Gothic element. The pacing in the first half of the book was a little slow and there were parts which I felt were redundant to the main plot, but the author managed the pacing much better in the second half, introducing more suspense and action. Although the ending turned out more or less as what I expected, there was enough intense animation and stirring mome...more
Eden and I share the same "stomping grounds" and we were born within a year of each other. That's pretty much where the similarities end. Knowing that part of the setting of this novel would be familiar to me is what made me pick up this book (she mentions Red Bank, Moccasin Bend, Signal Mountain, and other parts of Chattanooga). From the cover, I thought it would be a fairly spooky read. At the best, it was suspenseful at times. Suspenseful enough to make me want to keep turning the pages, but...more
Eden Moore is a special child. She can see ghost. And while this seems unnerving, it is really something that she accepts and grows up with. Eden's young mother died soon after giving birth to her and she has been raised by her aunt, Lulu and Lulu's husband, Dave. Together, they make a close-knit family and offer unconditional love to Eden. That is until Eden really starts to question her past. Things like why her psycho-cousin has tried repeatably to kill her, why the director of the hospital w...more
Of the thirteen books I have read since joining goodreads in May 2012, eleven of them are by authors I have not previously read and the majority of those are the first published works by those authors. I was introduced to Cherie Priest by the Sword & Laser show in one of their Author Guide episodes. They predominantly discussed her recent steampunk novels but ignored her early Southern Gothic ghost trilogy, the first of which was her debut novel:
Four and Twenty Blackbirds
. Though intereste...more
Three-point-five stars. (:
I wanted to like this book so much more than I actually did. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely worth the time. It was really a good book but something just didn't click with me. I loved Eden -- I thought she was a really good example of a curious but not a curiously-stupid character. She doesn't go off sauntering blindly into danger. She's smart and sassy and she always seems to know what she's doing.
More specifically as with all of Priest's novels that I've read, I l...more
I wanted to like this book so much more than I actually did. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely worth the time. It was really a good book but something just didn't click with me. I loved Eden -- I thought she was a really good example of a curious but not a curiously-stupid character. She doesn't go off sauntering blindly into danger. She's smart and sassy and she always seems to know what she's doing.
More specifically as with all of Priest's novels that I've read, I l...more
I seem to be tracking Priest’s career in reverse, having first read her highly-enjoyable steampunk novel, Boneshaker, and then her dark fantasy, Fathom. But Four and Twenty Blackbirds, the first in her Southern Gothic horror trilogy, is my favorite so far. Eden Moore can see ghosts. The orphan child of a teenage mother, Eden has been raised by her aunt Lulu and Lulu’s husband Dave, but she’s always had questions about her family and the circumstances of her birth, some of which Lulu is unwilling...more
What a fun find! I am so glad I pulled this out of the TBR closet and jumped in. I needed me a good ghost story and this book did not disappoint!
Eden goes on a sort of 'quest' looking for answers to her mysterious family history. She was adopted by her aunt, a wonderful woman, and her husband, an equally wonderful man. However, her families strange past catches up with her and she has no choice but to go digging for answers. This takes her through an old haunted sanitarium, to an older antebellu...more
Eden goes on a sort of 'quest' looking for answers to her mysterious family history. She was adopted by her aunt, a wonderful woman, and her husband, an equally wonderful man. However, her families strange past catches up with her and she has no choice but to go digging for answers. This takes her through an old haunted sanitarium, to an older antebellu...more
This book is seriously complex and I love the historical nature of the description of the family. A lot of good information about the South and current as well as past feelings regarding race. The supernatural aspects were great as well.
I'm not a practiced reader of the form, so it took me about two and a half chapters to realize this was, in fact, totally a Gothic. At which point I was like, "I'm out."
I'm sure it was a perfectly good Gothic! It's just that said genre is entirely too rich for my blood, and I was expecting a rather different sub-breed of ghost story.
I'm sure it was a perfectly good Gothic! It's just that said genre is entirely too rich for my blood, and I was expecting a rather different sub-breed of ghost story.
1 like · like · see review
Great modern Gothic Fiction.
I read the creepy playground scene at night. My daughter got out of bed to go to the bathroom, and I didn't know whether to scream, cry or quietly wet my pants. So it took me a while to screw up the courage to get back into it (Yeah, I know. Stupid Robin loves her zombies and swordfights, but confronted with a rainsoaked, abandoned playground, she loses her mind).
So why am I so freaked out? I guess it's that I grew up in Missouri, where large groups of trees are calle...more
I read the creepy playground scene at night. My daughter got out of bed to go to the bathroom, and I didn't know whether to scream, cry or quietly wet my pants. So it took me a while to screw up the courage to get back into it (Yeah, I know. Stupid Robin loves her zombies and swordfights, but confronted with a rainsoaked, abandoned playground, she loses her mind).
So why am I so freaked out? I guess it's that I grew up in Missouri, where large groups of trees are calle...more
Eden Moore is a young woman in search of the truth. Who is her mother? Why did she die in an insane asylum? Who are the three women-ghosts who haunt her childhood and whisper of a man with dark powers? This book is Southern Gothic at it's best. As Eden ventures from the hills of Tennessee to the swamps of Florida in search of the truth. A past riddle with secrets of family. An aunt/sister who won't reveal the truth, a young man who wants to kill her and always the voices/whispers of three women....more
Since I'm a notoriously slow reader, I wasn't able to finish this the first time I checked it out. But even though it took a while to get it back, I was thrilled to be able to pick it up again to finish it months later. The main characters really sticks with you as do all the areas that she visits along the way. Several scenes have really stuck with me long after reading this book - and really that's what makes any book worth picking up. One of my favorite aspects of it though is how it handles...more
This was a decent story, although it was a little heavy on the "gothic" of "Southern Gothic" as a genre for my taste. The characters were very Southern - which I tend to be drawn to - and the action was a good mix of solid suspenseful set-up and flat-out action.
I didn't particularly like most of the characters though, including the protagonist, Eden. I suspect the author did this on purpose, making everyone in the story a mix of positive and negative traits, but it did make it more difficult to...more
I didn't particularly like most of the characters though, including the protagonist, Eden. I suspect the author did this on purpose, making everyone in the story a mix of positive and negative traits, but it did make it more difficult to...more
Would have been four stars if I'd ever warmed up to the heroine. There was something empty about her, very hard to latch onto. Which is a shame, because I enjoyed pretty much all the supporting characters, especially the scenery-chewy Southern Gothicky ones, as well as the mythology itself. I'm not sure if it was the fault of the first-person narration, but the main character felt like a vehicle for all the interesting stuff, rather than being interesting herself.
Good Southern Gothic horror, an...more
Good Southern Gothic horror, an...more
I picked this book up on a whim - right around Halloween and it did not disappoint at all. I really liked the conjunction of three genres really - horror, investigative and biographical / family histories.
From the very beginning, Four and Twenty Blackbirds has a strong protagonist who you surely want to read about. Strong characters, plots and well drafted situations are a highlight. I don't generally read 'horror' stories because most of them are laughable and frankly, irritating. This one howe...more
From the very beginning, Four and Twenty Blackbirds has a strong protagonist who you surely want to read about. Strong characters, plots and well drafted situations are a highlight. I don't generally read 'horror' stories because most of them are laughable and frankly, irritating. This one howe...more
Apr 19, 2011
Jennifer
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
fans of Southern Gothic mysteries
Recommended to Jennifer by:
Priest's later books
Shelves:
read-2011
After reading Priest's steam punk series, I decided to investigate her earlier novels. Though this novel had all the elements you'd expect --a protagonist who sees ghosts, a family curse, and lots of swampy atmosphere, this story didn't grab me as much as I'd hoped. It was fine--just not great. This was one novel I actually thought might work better in third person; sometimes the thoughts of Eden Moore, the main character, distracted from the story at hand--particularly when an identity mix-up l...more
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CHERIE PRIEST is the author of twelve novels, including the steampunk pulp adventures Dreadnought and Boneshaker. Boneshaker was nominated for both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award; it was a PNBA Award winner, and winner of the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. Cherie also wrote Fathom and the Eden Moore series from Tor (Macmillan), and her novellas Clementine, Dreadful Skin and Those...more
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“Surreal. It was his word of the week. "This must be one of the circles of hell Dante accidentally left off the list.”
—
1 person liked it
“Modern families are complicated things. Siblings, half siblings, stepparents, stepcousins, what have you. You can't pick who you're born to, that's for sure.”
—
1 person liked it
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