"Echoes of a Haunting Revisited" is a re-issue and adds some material not in the original book. It tells the story of a family under siege. From the time the Dandy family moved to their "home in the country" in 1970 until they fled it in 1974, they were plagued but unexplainable and terrifying events. When they tell you ghosts can't harm you, take it with a grain of salt. Perhaps they can't affect you directly but they can sure cause incidents that can kill. The book is told in semi-diary form to keep it in (hopefully) order. If you don't believe in the paranormal, you'd better not read this book. If you want to learn something, by all means read it and learn.
I live 5 miles down the road from this house. My mom had also seen the UFO described in the book. She was outside and it hovered over her and a group of children. I took a walk in my woods a few weeks ago and music started playing out of nowhere. I was in the middle of nowhere when this happened.
My dad told me that when he was younger, he drove up to this house with friends and their car died. I've heard numerous stories from lots of different people. I believe it all. In a few weeks, I'll be taking a drive up there to experience it for myself.
Written in diary style, the book chronicles a family's paranormal ordeal for 4 years while living in one of Upstate New York's remotest rural areas. After moving into a 100 year old home adjacent to a man-made pond, the Millers find themselves living with ghosts trapped by a series of violent deaths around the property. Failed home blessings, a partial possession and car accidents ensue in the wake of negative forces beyond their control which lead them to seek the help of psychics and a loyal priest. Riveting and suspenseful, the ending leaves you wondering if anything can dispel evil and how the visitations are linked to UFO sightings left unexplained at the end of the book.
If you want to read an eerie, haunted house story…..this isn’t it.
I’m not here to discredit any of the paranormal activity in the house, because I haven’t been there and can’t say. However, this book does absolutely nothing to help tell the story of a haunted house.
Have you ever been somewhere in public and listening to a conversation that really has no story, no start, no ending? Well, that’s what this book is like. It’s one long breath of babble. We get a description of a house that makes no sense, we get eerie activity , bounce back and forth from one location to another, and that’s for 5 chapters BEFORE the story begins!
When I found out this was self published, it made more sense. This story is impossible to follow from chapter to chapter, we get descriptions of things that have happened, but then things are fine, but then let’s go back to when they first lived there and had no heat, to the bees in the house when they first moved in. It’s like listening to a 5 year old tell a story.
I think one of the most disturbing parts of this story was one of the daughters, who claimed to have being molested by a family member, is deemed to be ‘possessed’, rather than actually LISTENING to your daughter and perhaps doing something about it?? I know this was the 70s, but REALLY???? Can someone be THAT obtuse? Spoiler: That daughter ended up killing herself years later, which lends me to think she was being molested by someone and could not cope with it. Will never know and that just really, really made me irate—that you’d rather focus on a haunted house and alleged possession of your daughter than actually believe her?
This book is a jumbled mess, a clear indication of a cluttered mind just rambling. I’ve lived in a haunted house, had several paranormal experiences (none this extreme), and I can be sure I could string the story together a lot clearer than this author. Perhaps it’s because it was ‘revised’, and someone just added in their extra information without actually reading the original story—I can’’t be sure.
Sadly, this book only creates frustration, confusion and irritation. With everything that happened, I think someone who had writing skills could have conveyed the story a lot better, with a clear picture of what was going on.
(3.5 stars) This book was a really interesting read and definitely a different one for me! I picked it up after watching Stephanie Harlowe's videos about the Hinsdale House. Stephanie did a great job retelling the story but it was interesting enough to me to want to read the source material. Clara M. Miller tells the story of her family's time living in a haunted house as fact. Personally, I'm a skeptic and still am after reading this book, but I did find it really interesting! Miller herself seems skeptical of her experiences throughout the book, even as she recounts these strange happenings as fact. I think it serves to actually make the reader more likely to believe her story, because she acknowledges the weirdness and improbability of it all. I also found her formatting choices to be interesting. Miller tells her story in a diary format, but it is clearly written long after the dates ascribed to each event. In her introduction, she explains that the format was the way it made the most sense to her to tell her story, but it was a bit weird as a reader to have the blending of past and present tense, as well as the author's knowledge of what was to come hinted at throughout dated diary entries. I think the format helped make it so Miller could just focus on recounting the strange events without focusing too much on storytelling, but I personally would have enjoyed the book a bit more if she had either committed more to the diary format or changed it altogether.
Lastly, if you've read Home Before Dark by Riley Sager, this book really reminded me of the book Maggie's father wrote about their time living in that creepy house. I'm wondering if this story was an inspiration for Sager! Overall, I enjoyed the book, but if you just want to hear the story, I think you could stick to Stephanie's videos!
This is the type of book I enjoy reading, but I am a strong believe in the paranormal so I may be bias. I don't necessarily find this book scary or terrifying in itself. What I find so scary is that these events accually happened to someone. These events are unexplainable and the unknown/unexplainable can sometimes be the scariest thing.
The prologue I didn't much care for and honestly, I don't think it really needed to be in the book. Once you get past, the very long, prologue the book is written in diary style. I can't say I love or hate this style of writing but it worked for the book. However, I did not pay much attention to the dates.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. It is one of the better, and more believable, paranormal books I have read. It's also nice that to this at the house is still standing and is still being investigated
Comecei a ler esse livro no Halloween de 2022, mas admito que sou muito medrosa e, por isso, eu não conseguia fazer com que a leitura avançasse. Demorei meses para voltar para essa leitura porque passei a ter sonhos muito parecidos com as memórias que a Clara M. Miller trouxe nessas páginas e quando voltei, só conseguia ler durante o dia. Sou apaixonada por terror e adoro uma casa mal-assombrada desde que li Shirley Jackson pela primeira vez. Depois dessa leitura fiquei fascinada pela Hinsdale House durante um bom tempo, porque nunca tinha ouvido falar sobre essa casa, mesmo sendo razoavelmente famosa nos EUA. De qualquer forma, como eu passei muito tempo nessa leitura, o caráter epistolar começou a me incomodar um pouco e quando eu estava em 60% já não via a hora de terminar e ainda precisei ler dois epílogos... Não foi fácil. Mas é um bom livro de terror.
I read this book after spending a night at the hinsdale house. I wanted to find out what happened to the Dandy family that resided there for 4 years. The book is very interesting, I like that it’s in semi-diary form so you get detail of each event that occurred on those particular dates up until their departure from the house. One peculiar thing I discovered in this book was the amount of car troubles people were enduring after visiting this location. I, myself, have been experiencing car trouble after I visited this location (my car is only 1 year old.) Although nothing supernatural happened to me while I stayed there, is it possible that my experience is related to the house? Or is it just a coincidence?
Although it gets a little confusing with people's names and is a little confusing to read at times that's the point! This is someone's diary and from their perspective they don't need to explain why certain people suddenly show up, because that's how memories work. I appreciate the author telling us her thoughts on what happened in the house, and how, at times, things would just sound unbelievable. Overall, a good read and nice to hear about a haunting that isn't cliche.
Many years ago, around December of 2006, I watched the episode of A Haunting titled "Dark Forest." For some reason, that episode has always remained inside my mind and never left.
I was delighted to know there was a book about the haunting that was far scarier and had more detail.
I could not put this book down, and found it absolutely fascinating!
I only took one star off because I found the format rather distracting. She could have used a professional editor.
Terrifying and hard to sleep afterward. I read this at my daughter's recommendation. She likes scary stuff. I don't. Perhaps it bothered me as the location this story takes place is just a few miles from my home. If you want to fill your mind with creepy stuff to think about this would be a book for you. I won't read it again. I prefer reading things that are uplifting and not so dark.
So scary! Bought the book on the way home after investigating the Hinsdale House and I’ve been OBSESSED ever since! The first hand account from the previous owners is bone chilling!
Crazy story. Hard to believe that it’s true?? The writing wasn’t my favorite but overall enjoyed reading about the crazy experience they had at the Hillsdale house
it was a good read to know what happened in the house. I just did a tour through the house last November. I recorded a evp of some saying no after someone asked a question. The book to me was all over the place. A bit too much information About the family. I did however still like it!
I want to start out by saying that I never write reviews, but this one needs written. This book is absolutely terrifying and I have absolutely no doubt that everything in this book is true. I grew up about twelve miles from the house, I went there after I read this book. I just drove up there, didn't get out of the car or anything. I just wanted to see it. A few months later I had a friend visiting from out of town who is a photographer. She had also heard of the alleged Hinsdale House, and wanted to see it and take some photos. So we drive up there, and get to the house, put the car in park and we get ready to get out. And suddenly my friend says, I'm not getting out of this car. Something isn't right here and I want to go home. I roll my eyes, and tell her to sit and chill because I'm going to go out and get a few photos, I mean that's what we drove up there for, right? The second my feet hit the ground it felt different. It felt like the world shifted, the air was different, the Earth below my feet felt like I was standing on a ninety degree angle. It scared me, definitely. However, I brushed it off, and took some pictures of the house, the lake, and surrounding areas. I did it pretty fast, because it felt so weird out there. I believe the author described it as an "umbrella night." And that's exactly what it felt like. I get back in the car and go home and the first thing I do is turn on my computer to upload my photos onto my desktop. I'm scrolling through my camera, looking through my photos while I'm waiting for my computer to turn on. And I kid you not, in every photo I had a boy who looked about sixteen with blonde hair, in overalls. She mentioned a spirit who looked exactly like that! It seriously scared the shit out of me. You could sort of see through him, but he was definitely there. I would share these photos, but my camera shut off and wouldn't turn back on after that. Even with new batteries. It just wouldn't turn on. I didn't even get them on my computer. I was doubtful of this book when I first read it, I thought it was all ridiculous, and just written to scare people. I'm sure some of you know what life is like in a small town, sometimes people get bored and start stories just to amuse themselves and their families. That is definitely not the case with this. I have not been back to that house since that day, even though I live nearby, and drive by the road to get there often. And honestly, I don't know if I will ever go back. Those things shouldn't be messed with.
Overall this book was wonderful! I did however get a little bored at the beginning when she was talking about all their pets. I don't think we needed all the exact information on their pets. But besides that I thought it was very good, and unsettling. But in a good scary book kind of way.
This book definitely had some creepy moments that made me want to hide under my blankets..and oddly enough, I love that.
Echoes of a Haunting is written in a diary format. Being a non fiction book, I can understand why the author chose to do this. Unfortunately, it really just served to make the book seem fragmented and incomplete.
I enjoyed the fact that this took place relatively close to where I live! I recognized all of the locations mentioned and have been to many of them. Pretty cool.
If you like 'true' ghost stories, then I would say this is a decent read.
A great deal of this book can be summed up to poor decision making, bad luck, and the lack of common sense when driving.
This book annoyed me... The only reason it didn't get one star was the fact that this woman was sincere in the fact the she really does believe something paranormal happened to her.
Interesting first-person account of the house that has been named "one of the ten most haunted places in the US". Even if you don't believe in the paranormal, this is a great story. I have known many people who have had experiences at "The Hinsdale House", but it is up to the reader to decide for themselves. I recommend it!