Ghostly Encounters

October 1, 2002
Readers intrigued by the supernatural and eager to spend some quality time with ghosts may be tempted to pick up Frances Kermeen's Ghostly Encounters: True Stories of America's Haunted Inns and Hotels, but this "guide" offers little that hasn't been covered more eloquently elsewhere. From floating, disembodied torsos to menacing, Chucky-like dolls, Kermeen, the former owner of a haunted antebellum mansion, has ostensibly seen and heard it all either firsthand or secondhand through other innkeepers and their guests. However, her clunky, clich -ridden writing often mars the narration of these "sightings." When relaying one of her earliest encounters, for example, Kermeen writes: "In an instant, the room turned icy cold, and I felt terror in the air." Though this book's timely release and amusing premise will help it appeal to the Halloween crowd, readers would do better to pick up Dennis Hauck's Haunted Places: The National Directory.