The Family Plot by Cherie Priest

Music City Salvage can't really afford the deal being offered on Withrow mansion, but the promise of salvage that could finally earn them some cash is too good to pass up. And so, Chuck Dutton decides to risk everything to make it happen. 

Dahlia Dutton is well aware of the fact that the job at Withrow can literally make or break the family business. And so, when things start to turn strange, she's ready to brush it off and get the job done. It's just a week, after all, and everyone sees ghosts at these old places. But as she and the crew continue, things become not only weirder but potentially more dangerous. Ghosts haunt a graveyard said to contain no real graves, another specter lives inside the mansion itself terrorizing the crew increasingly as the week passes, and then there are clues found around the estate that seem to indicate not all is on the up and up with the Withrow family history. 

But again, it's only a week...

I love Cherie Priest's horror. It's what introduced me to her work - her Eden Moore trilogy, that is. So I was definitely stoked to see her return to those roots, so to speak.

The Family Plot never quite reached the same level of creepiness as Four and Twenty Blackbirds. But it was a quite fun outing anyway. Inspired by reality tv salvage shows, the book features a Nashville salvage company hired to gut an old estate near Chattanooga, Tennessee. They're told the house features chestnut flooring, marble fireplaces, and more - details that definitely start owner Chuck's mind working. With unpaid accounts out there, the business is already in trouble but the promise of chestnut alone, a wood lusted after in the salvage community, is enough for him to say yes to the job.

A job two other companies already turned down.

Dahlia is also risking everything, she can't afford for the family business to shut down especially now that she's divorced and living on just her income alone. Her salary barely covers her rent but the loss of it would be a serious detriment.

So you have a family business that has sunk everything they have left into one job that HAS to pay out, or else. Of course they're going to ignore any ghostly visions. And they trust, based on years of experience, reality ghost hunting shows, and stories amongst the industry, that nothing bad is going to happen to them regardless of how many ghosts they encounter.

And of course that decision gets them all in trouble!

I have to say this particular element - the fact that they all believe in the possibility of ghosts and that they even refer to ghost hunting shows and such as proof that nothing bad will happen was extra fun. You don't have to be a fan of  reality tv to love Priest's latest, but I would definitely say that you have to be a fan of haunted house books!

Rating: 3.5/5