Ghost Walking

by Mark Spencer

Forty-nine-year-old Southern society belle Ladell Allen commits suicide on Christmas night 1948 in the wake of yet another failed love affair. The dead Ladell spends the next six decades revisiting the past, observing the living Ladell, in an attempt to understand what her purpose in life was, as well as watching the world change within and beyond her home, the Allen Mansion, as she tries to figure out what her purpose in death might be. Looking back, she is mortified by her own foolish desperation in life. Moving forward, she is touched, amazed, and horrified by the living tenants in her home, some of whom she reaches out to with affection, some of whom she terrorizes. She also interacts with other ghosts—her sister, her mother, her son, her infant brother, and her beloved papa, who persistently over the decades pulls up in front of the Allen Mansion in a ghostly black Cadillac, urging her to join him for a ride into the unknown, a ride she is unwilling to take until she has answers to her questions about the meaning of her life and death.

Genres: Paranormal, Historical Fiction

168 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 1, 2016

About the author

In addition to his new novel, An Untimely Frost, Mark Spencer is the author of the novels Ghost Walking, Love and Reruns in Adams County, The Weary Motel, A Haunted Love Story, and The Masked Demon, as well as the short-story collections Wedlock and Trespassers and a history book, Images of America: Monticello.

His work has received the Faulkner Society Faulkner Award, the Omaha Prize for the Novel, The Bradshaw Book Award, the St. Andrews Press Short Fiction Prize, and four Special Mentions in Pushcart Prize. Over 100 of his novellas, short stories, and articles have appeared in a wide variety of national and international literary magazines.

Mark is the Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, as well as Professor of Creative Writing in the MFA program there.

He and his family live in the famously haunted Allen House, the setting of his books A Haunted Love Story and Ghost Walking, as well as the basis for five TV shows and a forthcoming feature film, The Perfect Host: A Southern Gothic Tale.

Reviews

[Heidi *Bookwyrm Babe, Voyeur of Covers, Caresser of Spines, Unashamed Smut Slut, the Always Sleepy Wyrm of the Stacks, and Drinker of Tea and Wine* · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is an incredibly well written piece that has screwed me up in the best way possible. I love this book so much. There was constant movement from the first page to the last. I have been completely blown away by the point of view of the dead, I did not expect this going in, and it will stay with me always. I would recommend this to anyone who loves history, old houses, and spirits.

[Brenda Clark Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

As usual, once I start one of Mark's books, I can't put it down. This book is a master piece. By the time I finished with the story, my heart went out to the ghost. Ladell had such a sad life and just lived for the man she loved and then he let her down. I loved the way the author treated the time travel where the ghost moved in and out of the important moments in her life. Of course, Mark's writing is a treat because it is so rich in description. I found myself underlining some of his beautiful passages. This is so not your typical ghost story. It's unique. Mark definitely is in tune with the female in the story. I can't say that about all the male authors who attempt to write from a woman's perspective. Many times I think that a woman would never think that way. He has treated this Ladell with a real tenderness. It really is a universal story of the human experience.

[Sally Ann Sims · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ghost Walking vividly narrates the dance partners of longing and despair, the eternal dependency between life and death. The stretching and blurring of time, memory, and self-knowledge is masterful. The rhythm, pacing, and sensory details of the novel form an intricate, multidimensional time canvas of the heart. --Sally Ann Sims, author of Halt at X: a North of Boston Novel

[John Schwartz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every one's ghosts

A lovely and inspired story. Moving and sad at the same time and wonderfully written. Having grown up in an old house myself I still see, hear, and sense their inhabitants close to me. Only a gifted writer as Mark Spencer can bring that to life. Ladell and Prentiss live forever thanks to him. John Schwartz

[Alexis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read A Haunted Love Story: the Ghosts or the Allen House first, and loved it. I felt this book, Ghost Walking, could have been so much more. Perhaps it’s because i had already read A Haunted Love Story so many of the letters were review. It was a good book, I just felt it was lacking.

[Skye Griffith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here's an engaging story based on a real person! Set in the most haunted house in America, if you're into the supernatural, this one's for you! Beautifully written as always from this author and thoroughly engaging.

[Kira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun book to read right before Halloween.