What a thrilling tale! Walker keeps you on your toes. You think you have an idea of what is going to happen next and she makes it happen in a completely different way than you imagined. A bit bizarre, but I thoroughly enjoyed this story from start to finish.

I really wanted to like this book. The beginning started out strong, but near the middle it faltered. The writing itself was beautiful at moments, but at other times felt like a 3rd or 4th draft. I was left with so many questions unanswered. For example, Walker writes, "She fell to the ground and died." How? Why? What happened? I felt this way throughout the entire story. The premise is SO interesting and holds such promise, but for me the book comes up short. The middle was too long and quite redundant, and I was wondering when we would be going back into Sylvia Wren's POV instead of Iris' for most of the story.
I also found typos and formatting issues which made it a bit harder to read through.

Again, a beautiful and wonderfully thought out premise, but poorly executed.

3.75/5

Thank you to Sarai Walker, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All reviews are my own unbiased opinion.

I was definitely half and half on this book. I really wish this was only a story about the Chapel sisters as I absolutely loved hearing about them. I felt the Sylvia Wren portions weren’t needed at all, and honestly they bored me a bit. Walker was able to write a tragically beautiful story about these sisters, and as each one met their horrible end, my heart broke for them more. It interested me that even after seeing what happened to their older siblings, each younger one still wanted to pursue a future of marriage. I enjoyed the subtle feminist and LGBTQ+ undertones, and was happy that Iris was able to accept who she was. I felt some parts were a little wordy and unnecessary, and that thought including the Sylvia Wren portions were the reasons I took a few stars off. I definitely think this will do well once publication day comes!

This phenomenal story will be talked about for years to come. Beautifully written and deeply captivating - the story of the Chapel sisters will enthrall readers from start to finish.

The Cherry Robbers is a thrilling ghost story that is impossible to walk away from, or to stop thinking about. Walker's storytelling engages readers from the first lines of the story, and leaves readers curious as to what comes after the final pages of the work.

This was the kind of book at I just wanted the read instead of working or eating or sleeping. I was completely engrossed in the lives of the Chapel sisters and the tragedy of their deaths. Thoughtful and well written. The art references were fantastic. I’m well studied in art and familiar with most of the works referenced throughout the book. I noticed the O’Keefe references and appreciated them. I’m sad the story came to an end and look forward to more from this author.

I very much enjoyed this one! The combination of eerie horror, historical fiction, coming of age feminism and self discovery found within this book worked so perfectly together. It genuinely made me want five sisters that live together in a cake shaped gilded age house surrounded by woods and gardens and fields and ghosts. The author weaved the story of the 6 sisters together in a way that was very captivating. The social commentary was poignant and I loved the ending as well.

Wow what. a book. I personally find the title a bit misleading. I am not sure EXACTLY what I expected but it was not this beautiful tale of a large family of girls. Without giving anything away, I urge you to read the story of Iris Chapel, told to us by Sylvia Wren, I loved the characters and loved the story. There is a touch of magical realism and hints of ghosts to call it gothic.

Our story takes place mainly in the United States in the 50's when Iris is just a young girl, one of 6 sisters living in a mansion paid for by family money via firearms. As the young women mature, they are faced with decisions to marry. The matriarch of the home, however, warns that any marriage will be the death of them.

Following Iris through the years, we watch as each daughter makes her own decision. The story never truly explains some of the larger mysteries, but it is so beautiful and captivating I did not care.

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review

The Cherry Robbers was fantastic! It was creepy, and sinister, and wildly eerie. Despite knowing from the start how the book will end, the journey in-between is well worth it. I loved the diary format of the book, taking the reader from the 1950s to 2017. Iris Chapel, sole survivor of the cursed Chapel family, documents the events of her life in her diary. The book dances between past and present, between Iris Chapel and Sylvia Wren, and between the living and the dead. It’s an amazing gothic/horror thriller and one you won’t want to miss!

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book.

As a lover of gothic horror, I really enjoyed The Cherry Robbers! Sarai really does an amazing job in this book of writing compelling female characters and putting them in scary situations. This book is wonderfully creepy and gives me really great Haunting of Hill House vibes. It explores sex and sexuality in a way that's really handled with care and it shakes up societal normals and perception in a way that makes the plot really interesting. Definitely a must-read if you like gothic horror!

As if the gorgeous cover wasn’t enough – then there was this puff: “Gothic ghost story with a fiery feminist zeal” and I mean, come on, how are you supposed to not be desperate to read that?!

So, go with me here: A good bit of Mexican Gothic (but with flowers), a little bit The Muse (but so much better), definitely some The Little Stranger (but a tonally different ending), a rustle of We Have Always Lived in The Castle (the sisterhood, those woods), and throw in some The Virgin Suicides (but the female characters are actually characters not just projections of male fantasies) and I guess what I’m saying is that there is a lot that is familiar in The Cherry Robbers, but while all of those stories came to mind for me – this book still felt absolutely like its own gorgeous creature. A ghost story, a meditation on grief and survival, and on the lot of traditional femininity, there’s plenty going on here but it never feels like it is laboring under its agenda. And, managing to be both beautiful and horrifying at turns and to do both really well throughout. It is just plain impressive.

The prose is elegant here and each character is fully realized (where they’re supposed to be [I don’t think the menfolk were intended to get that treatment]). The blurb does tell you what is going to happen from the outset, and while it is enticing, it might be setting you up for disappointment if you’re hoping for many further twists, which don’t really arrive… Instead the frame narrative is more of a more philosophical and emotional bent. It bookends the story beautifully, but I will admit I might have wished for more of a ghost story denouement.

I'm very sad to have not liked this book because the premise was so promising.
I don't want to keep this review long, but I want to say what I didn't enjoy. First of all, the author basically tells us what the story is going to be about in the beginning, which is that the sisters are dying after they have intercourse. And that's all. We know the story from the beginning, and that's exactly what happens all the time, one by one each sister dying. No you are not reading spoilers if you haven't read the book, because the author keeps reminding us that that's what's going to happen all the time.

It was just extremely repetitive. It's supposed to be gothic thriller and a story about ghosts, but a ghost visiting a character happens, what, like 3 times? And it's not scary and thrilling at all....

I'm sorry to say I was just really bored and didn't really get the point of this story at all.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the arc.

Thanks to Netgalley for an eARC - this book is set to publish on 1st February 2022.

This is my first review so please bear with me; but what a book to start with!

I really enjoyed The Cherry Robbers, and the immersive world Sarai has created and so masterfully draws you into. By this I don't just mean 1950s Connecticut, but the inner world of Sylvia Wren - I was on edge throughout most of the book, unable to tear myself away from what I knew was coming on the next pages. I think it takes a lot of skill to essentially explain the premise of the plot up front, as this book does - we know fairly early on <i>what</i> will happen to the characters - but to keep you wanting to read to find out the why, and the how, and this book deals with that in a brilliant way. Sarai does that with skill and charm and a depth of emotion that clawed at me; it is a ghost story, but it's also about so much more, as other reviewers have noted too.

I did find it lulled slightly about half way through, but this may well be edited further before publication, and regardless - it was definitely worth it to get to the second half.

So after reading the first chapter I wasn't sure I would get into this. However, once it transitioned to Iris'/Sylvia's younger years with her sisters, it drew me in. There were some times that I felt like the author focused too much on the mundane, but the overall story was interesting. I saw at the end that the title was based on a poem (I had wondered throughout the novel where the title had come from) so I looked up the poem online and read it. Admittedly I didn't quite "get" it, but in my opinion I would have rather had a title that related directly to the novel.

Kindly received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for a review.
While the story itself can be hard, full of tragic moments, the book itself is beautiful. The prose is very poetic and nice to read.
This book could fit in the thriller category, but I wasn't scared while reading it, it was just perfect to keep me on my toes!
The main story is set in the 1950's, which was a period full of sexism, but this book manages to tell a story about girls and women living in this period, without being sexist.
I couldn't put this book down!

All the ghosts, disturbed people with macabre histories, and general overall creepiness in this novel are a pretty significant detour from the memoirs and literary fiction I usually read, but all the angst and family drama--I'm here for it. Glad I read this one.

"The Cherry Robbers" was simply mesmerizing. I loved every single second of it. The writing is beautiful and the descriptions are so vivid, Sarai Walker plays with the senses in a way that makes the reader's imagination go wild. I was so immersed in the world of the Chapel family, I cried, I was angry, I was afraid for the characters. It did remind me of Shirley Jackson's "We Have Always Lived In The Castle", whit an extra touch of the peculiarness of the spiritual/ghostly/intuitive/abstract mind of Iris and her family. This became easily one of my favorite books and I will be so glad to get a copy when it comes out in February.

Loved the tone of Dietland which led me to request this from NetGalley as soon as I spotted it. It's so different from that book yet equally enthralling. A unique premise, a captivating story, and a genre-bending work overall. Not sure how much additional editing will take place prior to publication, but there were definitely some parts that I found tedious and repetitive. Still, a solid four stars.

This was really, really good. The Cherry Robbers was my first time reading a book by Sarai Walker and I'm very glad I picked it up, because it blew me away.

The reader starts off by knowing exactly how the story of the Chapel family ends: in death. It is 2017, and the lone survivor of that family feels a sudden compulsion to note down in a diary the events of her life, a life she has up till now carefully hidden from public scrutiny. Through her diary, the reader is transported back to 1950, where her story truly begins.

I personally don't like books written in the style of a diary. However, after my initial hesitation, I did start to enjoy it, getting drawn into the horrific events surrounding the Chapels easily. The story was not about mystery, but about suspense and tension: how would the deaths come to pass? How did Iris Chapel, our narrator, manage to survive? All this and more kept me hooked until, and even after, the lives of most Chapels ended.

Although the ending itself was remarkable, the words (and specifically, the punctuation) used to end this book irked me a little. I won't get into the particulars – they're too much of a spoiler – but I will say, very vaguely, that I would have preferred a full stop.

Review to be posted on my blog closer to the publication date.

The Cherry Robbers by S. Walker, published by Houghton Mifflin Hartcourt, is a story that got to me.
Set in two timelines, it tells the story of two women. Women from a family who're suffering a curse, made a long time ago.
Sylvia, the renowed american artist and Iris who's life is in smalltown Ireland in the 1950ties.
The storyline spans decades, is a gothic ghost story, well written and beautifully told.
A great 4,5 star read.

Sylvia Wren is a known recluse in the art community and though her paintings are more than well-respected, she’s not interested in the fame that comes along with her work. Sylvia is more interested in hiding who she is and where she came from. There is no Sylvia Wren...but there is Iris Chapel- previous heir to the fortune of Chapel firearms, along with her 5 sisters. Iris grew up with a detached father and seemingly mentally ill mother (Belinda) who claims to see the ghosts of the victims of the Chapel firearms her husband produces. Written off as crazy, when Belinda speaks of a premonition of her eldest daughter’s death following her imminent marriage, only Iris hears truth in her mother’s warnings. The premonition not only proves correct... it happens again.

This book turned out to be nothing like what I expected in the most delightful way possible. I expected a ghost story, and while there are absolutely horrifying and unsettling moments with supernatural undertones, I think this is actually a story of sisterhood, sexuality, and overall femininity based in the 1950’s when women were demonized for being anything other than docile. Walker’s writing is creepy and gothic but also lovely and educational. By the end, each sister felt like an old friend I used to know and I fell in love with this book.