Saturday, December 03, 2005

#104: Four and Twenty Blackbirds -- Cherie Priest

I'm not sure whether I'd have interpreted the 'flaws' (mostly pacing / loose-thread issues) as 'features' if I hadn't known that this was the author's first novel. Read for review -- where I'll be saying more, and not starting out by praising with faint damns! -- but I'd certainly recommend this.

Southern Gothic is as good a tag as any. Eden, growing up in a kind of liminal zone on the outskirts of Tennessee, sees ghosts. She sees them often enough to take them for granted: only gradually begins to realise that their story is also partly hers.

Eden's quest for her identity, and the story of her parents and her more distant ancestors, uncovers black magic and slavery, madness, double standards and a peculiar sibling rivalry. Family feuds, ancient prophecy and the past seeping into the present: Priest writes clear, precise prose, without the purpleness that this genre often invites.

reposted here from LJ in order to keep all my reviews in one place

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