Best Tales of Texas Ghosts
Docia Shultz Williams
Republic of Texas Press
1998
Night. South Texas. A La Quinta hotel room. Circa 2007.
I have never been so terrified of the ceiling. My mother and sister are sleeping in the room, but that doesn’t comfort this twelve-year-old at all. A streetlight shines through the cracks in the curtain, reflecting a pale pool of light onto the ceiling. Shadows lurk at the edges of the pool, draping down to cover the bathroom door.
And it’s all my fault.
A Guide to Haunted New England: Tales from Mount Washington to the Newport Cliffs
Thomas D’Agostino
Haunted America series, The History Press
2009
Since Occult Crimes failed to satisfy, I thought I would offer up another suggestion for those with a hankering for the unearthly.
I picked up A Guide to Haunted New England at a local historical attraction. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the title–I was looking for a good collection of ghost stories to keep me up all night long. (Docia Williams’s Best Tales of Texas Ghosts was a formative influence on me, and the cause of many sleepless nights in middle school).
A chilling, comprehensive collection of spooks this is not. It is, as it proclaims, a travel guide, and a fun, charming, serviceable one at that.
It is a slim volume, perfect for toting around in the car for the road trips it suggests. D’Agostino includes not only locales with reported ghosts, but also sites with macabre (though not haunted) histories. If you don’t believe in ghosts, or would rather not find out for yourself if they exist, you can still enjoy D’Agostino’s suggested drives, accommodations, and restaurants through the region. I did not look into if D’Agostino has any connection to local tourism boards, but they ought to give him a medal for his enthusiasm.
I was surprised not to find a section devoted to Boston in Haunted New England, but I suppose Boston deserves a book all its own. Lizzie Borden’s house is not included in this volume, but the Salem witch trials are. The section on Salem was quite enjoyable; it makes me want to go back to that strange, sweet seaside town already.
I didn’t get what I was looking for at the souvenir shop, but that’s not such a bad thing.
2.5/5 stars: Not as spooky as I wanted it to be, but very charming. May plan my next road trip with it.
2/5 ‘fraidy cats: Not chock-full of ghosts, but “Popcorn” and his glass-topped coffin is a chiller.
1/5 ick-factor: No blood, no guts, no gore. Just charming pictures of farm houses and graveyards taken by the author and his wife/fellow paranormal researcher.
true crime librarian 