More Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia

by Vernon Oickle

Are you still afraid of things that go bump in the night? Do you still think someone is watching you even though no one is there? Do doors and windows still open and close on their own? Do you still see people in your home even though you know you are alone? If you answer yes to even one of these questions, then More Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia will make you feel not alone.

Picking up where 2015's Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia left off, veteran ghost story teller Vernon Oickle brings to life more of Nova Scotia's intriguing tales of the paranormal, many of which have never been shared before.

180 pages, Paperback

Published September 30, 2019

About the author

Vernon Oickle lives in Liverpool, Nova Scotia. He studied journalism in Lethbridge, Alberta and upon his graduation in 1982, he returned to his hometown to begin his newspaper career. Since then, Vernon has won many regional, national and international awards for writing and photography. In 2012, he won the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors’ Golden Quill Award for best editorial writing, becoming only the third Canadian and the first Nova Scotian to win this honour since it was first presented in 1961.

Today, he is the editor of the nationally award-winning newspaper, The Lunenburg County Progress Bulletin in Bridgewater. Since October 1995 he has been writing the popular and award winning column, The Editor’s Diary. Helping to shape and influence public opinion on a wide range of topics that over time, his writing increasingly touches a populist nerve by airing topics important to his readers.

In addition to being an award winning journalist and editor, Vernon is the author of 18 books, many of which collect and preserve the heritage and culture of Atlantic Canada. In 2010 he launched a series of novels that get their names from a Maritime folklore rhyme about seven crows.

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do I believe in ghosts? Not really, but after reading Vernon Oickle's 2015 Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia in 2017 during a summer visit to Cape Breton, I must admit that I am now definitely increasingly willing to consider that paranormal occurrences might well and indeed exist, that this might be something realistic and not imaginary, not invented (although to be honest, I would still actually have to experience a haunting myself in order to be fully convinced that ghosts and the like are or can be real), and just to say I am also hugely glad to have now in my possession the two sequels, More Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia (2019) and Even More Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia (2025).

Now the main reason why More Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia has (at least in my humble opinion) a definite and textually intriguing tendency towards potential and often even towards probable authenticity and reality attached is that the majority of Oickle's featured tales, they represent firsthand ghost (et al) stories from the current, from the actual (modern-day) and more often then not named (identified) owners and residents of supposedly haunted buildings, eyewitness reports from individuals who have come across ghostly encounters, eerie sights, sounds etc. in Nova Scotia (both urban and rural, both outside and inside), and which makes More Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia marvellously different from, say, urban legends (as the latter generally are anonymous and often have someone telling a tale they have heard from the friend of a friend of a friend, and which certainly does not tend to be the case with More Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia). And well, and furthermore, none of accounts shown by Vernon Oickle in More Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia therefore tend to feel artificial to and for me (delightfully straight-forward, not overly creepy, they are mysterious but always believable and authentic sounding, as well as never gratuitously violent and horror-filled either), that More Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia certainly NEVER textually sounds like its tales could perhaps be either hoaxes or simply the outpourings of overly active imaginations, but stories of hauntings, of strange occurrences, of spiritual apparitions which the people giving and relating these accounts to Oickle have actually and truly experienced (or at the very least totally and absolutely believe to have experienced), and that yes, with many of the ghostly encounters, weird sounds, strange lights and the like shown and presented in More Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia, these have often been occurring for years, for decades and sometimes even for centuries, and often even with many individuals both in the present and equally so in the past experiencing them and recounting them.

Finally and textually delightfully, every ghostly tale of More Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia also includes Vernon Oickle's well-researched and generally soundly solid background information on the history of the featured Nova Scotia places and the people and events that shaped them (and which generally appear to be error free and historically accurate as well). And yes, Oickle's approach in Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia of presenting actual (and as such specifically identified) people and of also for the most part equally showing historical and cultural backgrounds, in my opinion, this cements the feeling of reality for More Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia and should thus also should make even skeptics at least consider the possibility of authenticity, of truth, and of ghosts and the like possibly being something possibly and maybe even probably real. Four stars for More Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia, warmly recommended, and while Vernon Oikle has not specifically penned Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia for children, More Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia is definitely also more than suitable for younger readers (for basically anyone aged eleven or so onwards) as well as (and happily so) also not ever being overly creepy, not being majorly frightening either (and as already repeatedly being alluded to above).

[George Ilsley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps I've already read too many books lately about "Ghost stories" and the "Supernatural" and was too stuffed full to absorb another morsel.

Many books of this type are titled "ghost stories" but the actual stories are about a range of experiences — premonitions, shared death experiences, and so on, as well as stories about experiences which might involve a "ghost".

Rounded down to 2 stars (it was okay) because this book ended on a particularly weak note, with an unfocussed story about . . . I'm not sure. It was a blend of fiction and storytelling which felt like a first draft of something, maybe.

There are a number of photos reproduced which helped to flesh out stories. My favourite tales here in this book of ghost stories were the ones that were not ghost stories. Also, since this is the second volume, I kept having the nagging feeling that all the best stories were in the first volume. Don't know if that is true or not, but I kept wondering if this book was comprised of the reject pile.

A more organized approach is Helen Creighton's Bluenose Ghosts.

[Pascale · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing really wrong with this book: I really don’t enjoy ghost stories. I’m still hoping to read more by this author!