Priest, Cherie: Not Flesh Nor Feathers
Not Flesh Nor Feathers
Writer: Cherie Priest
Genre: Horror
Pages: 361
It's one thing when I can't wait to read the next book of a trilogy/series, but I can make myself wait anyway. There's always reasons to move on to a new book, a new author, and the root of it is that I don't want to get a single writer's voice stuck in my head while I'm writing my own work.
But it's another thing when I can't wait to read the next book of a trilogy/series and go ahead an indulge. I've done this with Allen Steele, Karin Lowachee, John Scalzi, and now Cherie Priest.
I had my reason. For starters, it's just the perfect time of year to read Cherie Priest's work. Second, since I knew I'd forgotten details from the first book when I read the second, I didn't want to forget again by time I got around to the third book. Third, I enjoy her prose and her POV character WAY too much to let it side aside for long.
I was thrilled then, when, the same day I finished Wings to the Kingdom that Not Flesh Nor Feathers arrived in the mail, a birthday gift from my favorite michaelmay. I was tempted to put down the book I'd just started, but finished that so I could dig into this one.
I'll say this about Priest's books: once you pick them up, you do NOT want to put them down.
The third and final volume in the Eden Moore trilogy focuses on the sudden, mysterious rise of the Tennessee River, which not only throws the city of Chattanooga into crisis, but also raises the dead bodies of a brutal mass murder long past, and the dead won't stay dead. In fact, they're walking the city and bringing the living down with them.
This book, like those before it, has its own contained storyline. More so than the second book, Priest weaves in information from book one without completely losing me (in fact, it's one of the reasons I decided to REREAD book one ASAP), which means a reader can pick this volume up without having read the previous two and not feel very lost, which is a good thing. The end might not have quite the emotional impact as it would if said reader was familiar with the previous two books, but hey, it still stands on its own two feet.
Not Flesh Nor Feathers brings a lot of things to crisis, and not just the plot. Eden is attempting to take root in Chattanooga, only the tragedy of the events surrounding the river finally make her realize that's never going to happen. She develops a budding romance with that pesky report Nick Alders from book two, but it's so believable you don't even blink at it (and it takes, like, 1% of the whole book, the romantic stuff). We also finally see her come clean to her family about Malachai, which is another step towards acceptance. Malachai's subplot nearly broke my heart, and I mean it that I teared up at the end, but it was handled perfectly and flawlessly.
And even though I'm not THAT intimately familiar with the city of Chattanooga, the setting was easy to grasp. If there's one thing that Priest does well, it's mood and atmosphere, and this book's got that in spades. She's also remarkably consistent with Eden's voice, and while Eden does some stupid stuff, you're rooting for her anyway, because you want so badly for her to succeed.
The end of the book left me a little torn. It's a quiet ending, bittersweet. It's both an END to the trilogy we've read so far and a springboard for something more, something new, something different. Not all the loose ends have been tied: there's still the fact that Eden's struggling to figure out how Avery's curse is affecting her sight, as well as her overall physical being. There's the fact that she's just now acknowledged Nick as a potential love interest, however temporary that interest might be. And of course, there's loads of material concerning Eden's possible future with Dana Marshall's crew, and those are stories I'd kill to see.
Whether or not we'll see them is another story, as Not Flesh Nor Feathers is the final book in Eden Moore's story, and while Priest is working on other projects, there's nothing on the horizon for Eden unless the publisher says "yay." I know this because I was dying of curiosity and had to ask, so I shot her an email. She was very kind enough to answer. :)
Cherie Priest has certainly ensconced herself in my library as a must-read. Whatever she publishes, I'll buy, provided I can get my grubby little hands on it. I loved this book, loved the previous books, and will wish upon a star that one day, I'll get more Eden Moore stories. The best way to make that happen is if YOU, dear readers, check out Priest's books too. Not Flesh Nor Feathers can easily be read as a stand-alone, and if this book grabs you (as well it should), you must drop everything the moment you finish and get the other two. Or start with the other two, whatever works. Priest has an enjoyable, fun first-person POV to really sink your teeth into, she offers diverse characters (Eden herself is biracial, a very crucial point in the first book, Four and Twenty Blackbirds), and interesting stories grounded in a bit of real southern folklore and mythology. It's all very good stuff. These books aren't urban fantasy nor are they paranormal romance (as mentioned earlier, there's 1% romance in this particular book, and that's it for the entire trilogy). They're a supernatural horror that's written with finesse and a protagonist who doesn't give up without answers. They're spooky, chilling, and have got ghosts, murders, and other monsters. What more could you want?
Next review: Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest (re-read)
Next read: Someplace to be Flying by Charles de Lint