Priest, Cherie: Four and Twenty Blackbirds
Four and Twenty Blackbirds
Writer: Cherie Priest
Genre: Horror
Pages: 285 (reread)
I don't reread books.
It's not that I have a problem rereading books. It's just that there's so many NEW (to me) books I haven't read that I have difficulty justifying sitting down with something I've already read. I know in some cases, it's beneficial to reread certain books in order to examine their structure and the like, but while that would be a worthwhile exercise, it's not just I've been able to bother with it just yet.
I've got plenty of books that I want to reread, just because I loved them so much. Justina Robson's Mappa Mundi comes to mind, as does Karin Lowachee's Warchild. There's others I want to reread too just for fun, like the whole Harry Potter series back-to-back, or The Lord of the Rings. But those are books I'll get around to one of these nebulous days, not any time soon (with the exception of the books I love so much, and that'll be a sudden impulse thing that could happen at any time).
Considering that I read Cherie Priest's Four and Twenty Blackbirds May of 2006, what possessed me to read it again this year? Three reasons: 1) while reading Wings to the Kingdom, I suspect I'd forgotten a lot of the important details from Four and Twenty Blackbirds. When I read Not Flesh Nor Feathers, I knew I had, and really wanted to refresh my memory in order to better appreciate some of finer nuances of the book. 2) my good friend, adufresne37927 asked me if I'd be willing to contribute another book review for his December issue of PaperThin, a local arts & entertainment magazine for Knoxville, Tennessee. I was finishing up Not Flesh Nor Feathers when he called, so I said sure, I'd review the book I had in my hands. Then I remembered I'd just read Wings to the Kingdom, and I could talk about that too. And then I decided to just talk about the whole dang trilogy, and in order to do so with any effectiveness, I'd need to reread the first book.
And, of course, reason # 3: I loved it.
Because I've already reviewed this book once, I'm not going to get into any major discussion or use any LJ-cuts. The book is as good as I remember, darker than I remember, and I was surprised at just how many DETAILS I'd forgotten. So much that I didn't remember what was happening until it'd happened, though in some cases, I had some foggy notion of, "Isn't this the scene where X happens…?"
What makes Four and Twenty Blackbirds different from the other books in the trilogy is we meet Eden as a child, and we experience her gift from a child's eyes. In this book, she's learning that ghosts may not be such a scary thing, but a gun-toting cousin who wants to kill you because he thinks you're his great-grandfather reincarnated is. There are several really vivid scenes in this book, and Priest, as I say time and time again, is excellent with mood, atmosphere, and setting. This book really focuses on Eden's twisted family history and the dark magic that lingers there. While her race is mentioned in the later two books, it plays a major part of the plot in this one, and that also is fascinating, because it's so true to the nature of the South. Eden has got to be one of my favorite heroines, and this book definitely deserves the horror/dark fantasy label over urban/paranormal fantasy, though paranormal elements are a major part of the plot.
Even with a second read, I can't recommend this book-this whole trilogy-enough. As I've said before, I'll buy anything she writes, and that's a rare compliment, because there's plenty of writers who pen books I love but I'm suspicious over trying something new by them.
What else can I say? If you enjoy horror/dark fantasy/paranormal fantasy, you need to get your hands on this book. There's no romance, so you don't need to worry about THAT, and Eden Moore is not some Buffy-wanna-be-kick-ass heroine that's often seen in paranormal/urban fantasies. So give it a go, and if you like it, be sure to talk it up. The book-the trilogy-deserves it.
Next up: Someplace to be Flying by Charles de Lint