Haunted Hotels

Ghost House Books

by Jo-Anne Christensen, Shelagh Kubish (Editor)

Pack your bags and prepare to journey to the eeriest of destinations, where elegance, luxury and gracious hospitality co-exist uneasily with shadowy secrets and haunted history. Jo-Anne Christensen, author of several best-selling ghost story books, is your guide on this terrifying tour of some of the world's most haunted hotels, inns and * The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel--where a mysterious image of a beautiful blonde appears in a mirror once hung in Marilyn Monroe's poolside suite * The Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast in Massachusetts--home to the spirits of Abby and Andrew Borden, both slain in one of America's most notorious unsolved mysteries * The Bullock Hotel in Deadwood, South Dakota--where the ghost of the town's first sheriff has returned to maintain law and order * The Hotel del Coronado in California--where a beautiful female phantom directed an investigation into her own death, nearly one century after the fact * The Olde Angel Inn in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario--long haunted by ''Captain Swayze,'' the earthbound apparition of a British officer who died during the War of 1812 * The Bell Hotel in Thetford, England--where the ghost of a murdered innkeeper inhabits the Elizabethan painting that was her last image before death. * Whether you're a ghost story buff or an adventure-seeking traveler, you are sure to find Haunted Hotels most accommodating.

Genres: Paranormal, Nonfiction, Ghosts, Ghost Stories

216 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2002

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

With Haunted Hotels (2002) "true" ghost story collector Jo-Anne Christensen has put together an obviously meant to be spooky (but sadly not really ever even remotely creepy) collection of 36 haunted hotel accounts from the USA, Canada and Great Britain.

But yes, it is precisely how Christensen has presented her haunted hotels that has basically pretty much diminished if not actually destroyed potential reading pleasure for me regarding Haunted Hotels. For with the author's aggravating and frustrating tendency for information dropping, for often overwhelming her readers with facts, facts and more facts (and thus kind of hugely and utterly burying the actual ghost stories themselves under this), the vast majority of the ghostly accounts presented in Haunted Hotels are (at least in my humble opinion) tedious, dryly educational, neither entertaining nor in any way spine-chilling. And although some of the Great Britain haunted hotels stories are perhaps just a wee bit less buried beneath mounds and mounds of historical trivia so to speak, this does not really redeem Haunted Hotels for me and equally does not make me all that much appreciate Jo-Anne Christensen as a writer and collector either, that a two star rating is therefore all that I for one am willing to consider for Haunted Hotels (not to mention that the non acknowledgment of sources and no included bibliography is also majorly making me grit my teeth with academic frustration and massive annoyance).

Furthermore, I am also, I am equally more than a bit disappointed and frustrated that Christensen in Haunted Hotels has rather ignored many of Canada's most haunted hotels (for I definitely do think that it is weird how no haunted hotels from the Maritimes are presented in Haunted Hotels and that instead of Banff's Chateau Lake Louise where a 1924 fire has been claimed as having been started by a ghost, Jo-Anne Christensen should in my opinion and absolutely be featuring the considerably more famously haunted Banff Springs Hotel). And also, and finally, why lump both Canadian and US haunted hotels together in Haunted Hotels (as if Canada and the United States are one and the same), as yes, this is both annoying and equally rather confusing (and as such also further solidifies my lack of reading joy regarding Haunted Hotels and that my two star rating is more than well-deserved and totally, completely justified).

[DeAnne · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Some of these stories were very enjoyable, but some of them were really dry and harder to get through. I loved the stories that included little vignettes at the beginning, they sort of set the scene better than jumping right into the history.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book talks about hotels that are rumored to haunted, it talks about the possible origins of the ghosts and describes sightings. I always take these books with a grain of salt, but it's interesting to think about haunted places. I wonder if I'll ever stay in any of these hotels. Overall, there wasn't a whole lot to distinguish the book from hundreds of others of the genre, but I did find it worth reading.

[Amanda Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all, I love haunted hotel stories. Second of all, I don’t read a lot of nonfiction so I don’t have much to compare this to. That being said, I really enjoyed this. It was the perfect balance of information and story telling for me. I was glad to see The Queen Mary featured, a haunted ship converted to tourist destination/hotel that I stayed on a couple times when I was a kid. Absolutely recommend this as a fun summer read if you’re into haunted hotels.

[Alicia B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good amount of American, Canadian, and British hotel stories. Would love to read an international one with other countries as well.

[Shelby Hawk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish the stories were more detailed and spookier. Some of the stories lasted for only a page and I didn’t feel like they needed to be in there

[LibraryCin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read a lot of the books in this series. I quite like the geographically specific ones (Alberta and Saskatchewan, in particular), but for the theme stories, this is probably one of the best that I've read. I guess because hotels have so many guests and various people going through them and things happen... It often makes for multiple hauntings in one location, which in turn, makes the stories more interesting!

Some of the highlights in this book for me are stories about: the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, where you might find Marilyn Monroe looking back at you in a mirror, and apparently Montgomery Clift hangs out there, too (among others!); the Queen Mary 2 - a former cruise ship - is now docked in Long Beach, Calif and run as a hotel, and of course, there are ghosts there; Lizzie Borden's former home is now a B&B, haunted by her parents; and Mary, Queen of Scots is apparently sometimes seen in a hotel that now has the windows and stairs from the place where she was imprisoned before she was beheaded. There was also a story about a phantom hotel that someone even tried to spend a night in... that was a cool story!

So, if you like reading "true" ghost stories, this is one of the better ones I've read.

[Tara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad for light summer reading. ;-)