Review – The Family Plot

Posted February 18, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of The Family Plot by Cherie PriestThe Family Plot, Cherie Priest

Received to review via Netgalley; released in September 2016

Cherie Priest has written a whole bunch of different books, and I don’t love them all, but I have found them all to be solid stories. The Family Plot has a fun setting and concept: a salvage crew go in to get what they can from an old house scheduled for demolition. Problem is, the house has a history, and its past occupants aren’t all gone. It makes so much sense: of course old houses are creepy, and of course salvagers are going to be more interested the older it is. And of course, the older it is, the more history it has, tragedy included. The main character, Dahlia, believes in ghosts already; she’s felt them, she knows they’re there, and mostly they leave the living alone.

I won’t discuss too many of the details of the plot, because that mystery is part of the interest. It is worth noting though that every summary I can find doesn’t match with the events as they unfold in the ARC I got.

The problem with me is that I’m a total wuss, so horror isn’t normally my thing — in fact, I only picked this up because it was by Cherie Priest. Even so, I felt that a lot of the elements were pretty traditional and obvious. Doors that slam behind you and won’t open. Burials where there shouldn’t be burials. Ghosts who scratch messages into the floor. It felt like we saw it all a bit too clearly for it to be creepy. The final resolution — the whys and wherefores of the haunting — also didn’t quite satisfy me. There’s so much monstrous build-up, and then the solution is kind of… anti-climatic.

Nonetheless, the setting works really well, and I loved Dahlia. She’s capable, but not a superwoman. She knows what she’s doing, she’s decisive and smart, but she doesn’t always make the right decisions. And she’s not some fresh-faced kid with no history: she has a past which informs the way she acts now and the way she interacts with those around her. The supporting characters weren’t developed as much, but I found myself oddly interested in Bobby in particular, and how he might get his life together. At the very least, he raised a decent kid in Gabe.

Overall, it’s enjoyable, if not ground-breaking, and probably worth a look if you’re into ghost stories.

Rating: 3/5

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4 responses to “Review – The Family Plot

    • Priest’s books do seem to have that effect — one that’s good for a particular person doesn’t suit someone else at all. My favourites were Bloodshot and the sequel, and a couple of her novellas.

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