The Veil: Heidi Wyrick's Story

by Joyce S. Cathey

Three-year-old Heidi Wyrick is born with the ability to communicate with the dead and to gain personal knowledge, identify, and actually befriend spirits from beyond the grave. But these supernatural abilities make her life and the lives of her family a living hell.

Fear becomes tangible when Heidi's mother, Lisa Wyrick, uncovers hard evidence that her daughter has befriended a man who has been dead for thirty years. To Lisa's horror, every detail she learns from Heidi proves to be true. But after being threatened by a dark figure, Heidi is thrown into a state of intense fear. The dark figure is different--he is not her friend--and she senses that he means to harm her and her family.

Paranormal experts test Heidi, and exorcisms of the home and reading from well-known psychics become routine. The Veil takes you on a chilling journey through the Wyrick family's seventeen-year nightmare.

154 pages, Paperback

First published April 3, 2007

Reviews

[Steve Wiggins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Writing well is a gift. Even good writing benefits from an editor. As I’ve noted elsewhere (Sects and Violence in the Ancient World), the problem, besides “who you gonna call?” when something unusual happens is that publishers shy away. Nothing injures reputation like a run-in with the paranormal. (Unless it’s fiction.) The story of Heidi Wyrick is really the story of her family. She seems to have seen the most, but the whole family was involved. Indeed, this book was written by two of Heidi’s aunts. (This prompts the question of why she didn’t write it herself.)

The book is quite a page-turner. The fawning descriptions of family members, however, makes the reader question the objectivity of the reporting. Not only that, but the book has a tendency not to talk about the other strange things that happened, as shown in the documentary, A Haunting in Georgia. I kept waiting for the part when a young Heidi went directly to Mr. Gordy’s grave without having been to the cemetery before. There is creepy stuff in this book, but it leaves lots of questions behind. The reader wants to know more. An editor would’ve helped.

Strange things happen to people. Sometimes they’re discounted because some people don’t observe things closely, or simply aren’t aware of the literature. At other times, however, odd things can’t be easily explained away. That seems to be the case with what was going on in the Wyrick household. It would’ve been good to hear it first-hand, however. This brief treatment of a haunting does offer some chills. If you’ve seen the documentary first, however, you’ll be left wondering about what else happened. (The cinematic movie can safely be ignored.)

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very interesting "rest of the story" type of book for me. It was not especially well written and even contained a few grammatical and spelling errors. The topic was fascinating and very interesting. The presentation was probably a C+ to B- in my opinion. I would read it again. I would recommend watching the documentary file "A Haunting in Georgia" for a slightly different representation of this family's story. Very interesting.

[Lisa Russo-Rodriguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book had a few grammar errors but was good overall

[Jessika Hoover · Rating 3 out of 5]

There really isn't a whole lot for me to say about this little book beyond the fact that I enjoyed it (as much as one can "enjoy" a book about horrific events). Some grammar issues and a few typos aside, I did find this to be a disquieting account of one family's experiences with the paranormal. Told in a prose format, I kind of expected this to feel less like a true story, but truth be told, there were several occasions where I got chills as I read. I can't even begin to fathom what I would do in their shoes. It took a little bit of searching to get my hands on a copy of this (thanks, AbeBooks!), but I'm glad I did. Being simply a telling of one family's experiences, it may not offer new perspective or research or anything, but if you are interested in the paranormal, I'd recommend searching this one out, even if just as a supplement to the documentary, A Haunting in Georgia, which had some slightly different details.

[Barbara Cravens · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was so much more than I expected, I loved it, it even
had the goosebumps raised on my arms during a few parts of the book.

[PammySue · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book and easy read. A few grammatical and typing errors but the subject matter makes up for it. Downloaded it on my Kindle App and noticed some missing pages.