Book picks similar to
Night Stalks the Mansion: A True Story of One Family's Ghostly Adventure by Constance Westbie
non-fiction
paranormal
horror
ghosts
No One's Home
D.M. Pulley - 2019
But soon after they buy Rawlingswood, a foreclosed mansion rumored to be haunted, they realize they’re in for more of the same…or worse.After a renovation fraught with injuries and setbacks, the Spielmans move in to the century-old house, and their problems quickly escalate. The home’s beautiful facade begins to crumble around them when their teenage son uncovers disturbing details of Rawlingswood’s history—a history of murder, betrayal, and financial ruin. The Spielmans’ own shameful secrets and lies become harder to hide as someone or something inside the house watches their every move.As tensions build between the family members, the home’s dark history threatens to repeat itself. Margot and Myron must confront their own ghosts and Rawlingswood’s buried past before the house becomes their undoing.
Miramont's Ghost
Elizabeth Hall - 2015
Only one person knows the truth: Adrienne Beauvier, granddaughter of the Comte de Challembelles and cousin to the man who built the castle.Clairvoyant from the time she could talk, Adrienne’s visions show her the secrets of those around her. When her visions begin to reveal dark mysteries of her own aristocratic French family, Adrienne is confronted by her formidable Aunt Marie, who is determined to keep the young woman silent at any cost. Marie wrenches Adrienne from her home in France and takes her to America, to Miramont Castle, where she keeps the girl isolated and imprisoned. Surrounded by eerie premonitions, Adrienne is locked in a life-or-death struggle to learn the truth and escape her torment.Reminiscent of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, this hauntingly atmospheric tale is inspired by historical research into the real-life Miramont Castle in Manitou Springs, Colorado.
The Haunting of Thores-Cross: A Yorkshire Ghost Story
Karen Perkins - 2012
A haunting historical thriller set in Britain's North Yorkshire Moors about isolation, superstition and persecution, The Haunting of Thores-Cross explores 18th century life in a picturesque but isolated village in the North Yorkshire Moors. When a vulnerable young girl is ostracised within her community and accused of witchcraft, the descendants of her neighbours will suffer for centuries to come.*Silver Medal Winner, European fiction - 2015 IPPY Book Awards *#1 Bestseller in 6 Amazon Categories, including Ghost Suspense, British Horror and Gothic Romance*Top 10 Bestseller in 8 more, including Historical Thrillers and Occult Horror*Over 100 5-STAR reviews on Amazon.com Likened by independent reviewers on Amazon to the Brontë sisters, Edgar Allen Poe, Barbara Erskine and Nathaniel Hawthorne, Karen Perkins' novels are filled with unflinching honesty and an acute understanding of human nature. She explores not only the depths of humanity, but the depths of human motivation behind the actions and pain people inflict upon each other, as well as the repercussions of these actions not only in the short term, but also the later generations who live with the implications of the past. Emma Moorcroft is still grieving after a late miscarriage and moves to her dream house at Thruscross Reservoir with her husband, Dave. Both Emma and Dave hope that moving into their new home signifies a fresh start, but life is not that simple. Emma has nightmares about the reservoir and the drowned village that lies beneath the water, and is further disturbed by the sound of church bells - from a church that no longer exists. Jennet is fifteen and lives in the isolated community of Thores-Cross, where life revolves about the sheep on which they depend. Following the sudden loss of both her parents, she is seduced by the local wool merchant, Richard Ramsgill. She becomes pregnant and is shunned not only by Ramsgill, but by the entire village. Lonely and embittered, Jennet's problems escalate, leading to tragic consequences which continue to have an effect through the centuries. Emma becomes fixated on Jennet, neglecting herself, her beloved dogs and her husband to the point where her marriage may not survive. As Jennet and Emma's lives become further entwined, Emma's obsession deepens and she realises that the curse Jennet inflicted on the Ramsgill family over two hundred years ago is still claiming lives. Emma is the only one who can stop Jennet killing again, but will her efforts be enough? The Haunting of Thores-Cross was previously titled Thores-Cross.The Yorkshire Ghost Stories are all stand-alone, complete books, and can be read in any order
The Ghosts of Lakeforth Hotel
Amy Cross - 2016
What she finds, however, is a crumbling old ruin that has clearly been left abandoned for many years. She wants to turn around and leave immediately, but her boyfriend has other ideas. Lakeforth Hotel has a dark history. Almost a century earlier, two young girls were orphaned in a horrific fire, and they were quickly taken in by the hotel's owner Jobard Nash. They soon discovered that Nash was a cruel and sadistic man, and now it's said that the ghosts of those two girls haunt the hotel. But what do they want, and how far will they go in their hunt for revenge? The Ghosts of Lakeforth Hotel is a horror novel about a girl who wants revenge for her murder, and about a woman who discovers years later that the living can never escape the clutches of the dead.
American Ghost: A Family's Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest
Hannah Nordhaus - 2015
She was sad and translucent, present and absent at once. Strange things began to happen in the Santa Fe hotel where she was seen. Gas fireplaces turned off and on without anyone touching a switch. Vases of flowers appeared in new locations. Glasses flew off shelves. And in one second-floor suite with a canopy bed and arched windows looking out to the mountains, guests reported alarming events: blankets ripped off while they slept, the room temperature plummeting, disembodied breathing, dancing balls of light.La Posada--"place of rest"--had been a grand Santa Fe home before it was converted to a hotel. The room with the canopy bed had belonged to Julia Schuster Staab, the wife of the home's original owner. She died in 1896, nearly a century before the hauntings were first reported. In American Ghost, Hannah Nordhaus traces the life, death, and unsettled afterlife of her great-great-grandmother Julia, from her childhood in Germany to her years in the American West with her Jewish merchant husband.American Ghost is a story of pioneer women and immigrants, ghost hunters and psychics, frontier fortitude and mental illness, imagination and lore. As she traces the strands of Julia's life, Nordhaus uncovers a larger tale of how a true-life story becomes a ghost story--and how difficult it is to separate history and myth.
Burnt Offerings
Robert Marasco - 1973
They find a beautiful old country mansion on Long Island -- restful, secluded, with pool and private beach -- perfect, for the right people. But their "perfect" summer home hides terrors beyond their wildest imaginings. During that long summer the house becomes a nightmare from which there seems to be no escape.
Coast to Coast Ghosts: True Stories of Hauntings Across America
Leslie Rule - 2001
An employee of the St. James Hotel in New Mexico watches in shock as a fair-haired toddler with a terribly disfigured face disappears into the floor. This is just one of the paranormal mysteries Leslie Rule shares with us--a result of extensive interviews and research uncovering the reasons behind ghost sightings across the country.Coast to Coast Ghosts features dozens of spine-tingling, real-life ghost stories and approximately fifty black-and-white photographs taken by Rule, including some believed to have captured actual apparitions.Only the reader can decide. . . .
Ghosts of the McBride House: A True Haunting
Cecilia Back - 2009
Ghostly parties at 2:00 a.m., spirits calling family members and houseguests by name, dolls that talk even after the batteries have been removed...The Back family has been subjected to impossibly bright lights, loud crashing noises, weird shrieks--even ominous odors such as decaying matter.Each ghost in the McBride House has a personality of its own, including one entity whose antics are downright terrifying. But instead of fleeing, the Back family remained and gradually got to know their spirited residents.This is their story.
Don't Look Inside
Spike Black - 2015
Suddenly the words DON'T LOOK INSIDE scratch furiously into the leather, as if carved by an invisible hand. Lizzie jolts, terrified. She intends to heed the warning. No way in hell is she opening the book now.But her curiosity gets the better of her. She feels compelled to look inside. Her hands move with a will of their own, opening the book. Her heart hammers in her chest as she reads the first line. No. She reels in horror. What have I done? She should have obeyed the warning. She never should have looked inside. But now it's too late, because the book is about to exact a hideous punishment...Spike Black's Don't Look Inside is an unrelenting, fast-paced supernatural horror novel. Written in an arresting and irresistible style, it's a high concept, must-read ghost story that will haunt you long after its uncompromising and spectacular conclusion.
Graveyard
Ed Warren - 1992
For decades, Ed and Lorraine Warren hunted down the truth behind the most terrifying supernatural occurrences across the nation… and brought back astonishing evidence of their encounters with the unquiet dead. From the notorious house immortalized in The Amityville Horror to the bone-chilling events that inspired the hit film The Conjuring, the Warrens fearlessly probed the darkness of the world beyond our own, and documented the all-too-real experiences of the haunted and the possessed, the lingering deceased and the vengeful damned. Graveyard chronicles a host of their most harrowing, fact-based cases of ghostly visitations, demonic stalking, heart-wrenching otherworldly encounters, and horrifying comeuppance from the spirit world. If you don’t believe, you will. And whether you read it alone in the dead of night or in the middle of a sunny day, you’ll be forever haunted by its gallery of specters eager to feed on your darkest dread.
The Haunting of Highdown Hall
Shani Struthers - 2014
Not just a job for Ruby, it's a crusade and one she wants to bring to the High Street. Psychic Surveys is born. Based in Lewes, East Sussex, Ruby and her team of freelance psychics have been kept busy of late. Specialising in domestic cases, their solid reputation is spreading - it's not just the dead that can rest in peace but the living too. All is threatened when Ruby receives a call from the irate new owner of Highdown Hall. Film star Cynthia Hart is still in residence, despite having died in 1958. Winter deepens and so does the mystery surrounding Cynthia. She insists the devil is blocking her path to the light long after Psychic Surveys have 'disproved' it. Investigating her apparently unblemished background, Ruby is pulled further and further into Cynthia's world and the darkness that now inhabits it. For the first time in her career, Ruby's deepest beliefs are challenged. Does evil truly exist? And if so, is it the most relentless force of all?
Little Girls
Ronald Malfi - 2015
It was one of many rules imposed by her cold, distant father. Now, in a final act of desperation, her father has exorcised his demons. But when Laurie returns to claim the estate with her husband and ten-year-old daughter, it’s as if the past refuses to die. She feels it lurking in the broken moldings, sees it staring from an empty picture frame, hears it laughing in the moldy greenhouse deep in the woods…At first, Laurie thinks she’s imagining things. But when she meets her daughter’s new playmate, Abigail, she can’t help but notice her uncanny resemblance to another little girl who used to live next door. Who died next door. With each passing day, Laurie’s uneasiness grows stronger, her thoughts more disturbing. Like her father, is she slowly losing her mind? Or is something truly unspeakable happening to those sweet little girls?
Whisper
Michael Bray - 2013
A place for Steve & Melody Samson to begin their new life together away from the noise and crime of the city. However, their new home – an idyllic cottage nestled deep within the dense solitude of Oakwell forest-has a disturbing history, hidden for generations by the locals. There is evil in Hope House, and the cursed forest that surrounds it. Evil that has awakened after lying dormant for decades, and has terrifying plans for the young couple.Once you hear the whispers, it may already be too late.
The Siren and the Specter
Jonathan Janz - 2018
But the Alexander House is different. Built by a 1700s land baron to contain the madness and depravity of his eldest son, the house is plagued by shadows of the past and the lingering taint of bloodshed. David is haunted, as well. For twenty-two years ago, he turned away the woman he loved, and she took her life in sorrow. And David suspects she’s followed him to the Alexander House.
The Invited
Jennifer McMahon - 2019
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In a quest for a simpler life, Helen and Nate have abandoned the comforts of suburbia to take up residence on forty-four acres of rural land where they will begin the ultimate, aspirational do-it-yourself project: building the house of their dreams. When they discover that this beautiful property has a dark and violent past, Helen, a former history teacher, becomes consumed by the local legend of Hattie Breckenridge, a woman who lived and died there a century ago. With her passion for artifacts, Helen finds special materials to incorporate into the house--a beam from an old schoolroom, bricks from a mill, a mantel from a farmhouse--objects that draw her deeper into the story of Hattie and her descendants, three generations of Breckenridge women, each of whom died suspiciously. As the building project progresses, the house will become a place of menace and unfinished business: a new home, now haunted, that beckons its owners and their neighbors toward unimaginable danger.