Four and Twenty Blackbirds (Eden Moore Series #1) » (~)

Cherie Priest lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she is a writer for a computer company. This is her first novel.

"Spooky and engrossing, this revenge play is as sticky as a salmagundi made from blood and swamp dirt. Priest can write scenes that are jump-out-of-your-skin scary. This is the first installment in what I can only hope will be a long and terrifying friendship."

—Cory Doctorow

"Fine writing, humor, thrills, real scares, the touch of the occult . . . had me from the first page. I read straight through. An absolutely wonderful debut, and a book not to be missed."

—Heather Graham

"Cherie Priest has created a chilling page-turner in her debut novel. Her voice is rich, earthy, soulful, and deliciously southern as she weaves a disturbing yarn like a master! Awesome-gives you goosebumps!"

—L.A. Banks

Publishers Weekly

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 cliche 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. Agent, Lantz Powell. (Oct.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.