Ghostly Stories

Tip of the Day: today is the official release day of Lisa’s new book Chasing Brooklyn. You’ll want to make sure you pick up a copy!

In Chasing Brooklyn, both Brooklyn and Nico are haunted by ghosts. And not just any ghosts, but of people they know. Which in my opinion would be even freakier: you might be able to explain away a random image standing above your bed as your imagination, but if that image is of a friend or brother that just died it’s not so easy to get over.

My entire life I’ve been squeamish of ghost stories. One of my teachers in high school would have “ghost story day” and share stories of the ghosts that lived in his 100-year old farm house and then encourage other people in the class to share their own ghost stories. Talk about wanting to play hooky.

The thought of running into a ghost of my own has always freaked me out. It’s not like you could out run it—like a mouse or a spider. If it’s an angry ghost and wants to take out revenge on you, then you are pretty much screwed.

Since I had never had my own experience with these other-worldly beings, for most of my life I’ve kind of been on the fence on if ghosts exist or not. Some of those stories during high school “ghost story day” could be explained away. The moving rocking chair in the attic could be from a gust of wind and so forth. And from all the stories I’d heard most ghosts seem to be harmless and contained inside buildings, so for the most part my fear remained contained to not wanting to watch supernatural movies with the lights off.

That was until my husband and I moved into a 50-year old home in Tennessee, which we both believed was haunted. Neither one of us ever saw any ghosts, but there were constant feelings of someone watching you and just an overall “eerie” feeling. Now if one of us got that way and the other didn’t I might be okay, but both of us felt it constantly.

Neither one of us wanted to step foot into our basement, even though there were huge windows and a walk-out that made it fairly light and not that creepy. Just the feeling you got when you walked down the stairs made the mood shift and the hairs on your arms stand up. Luckily the laundry was located in the basement and it gave me an excuse to make my husband do it, so it might not have been all bad.

We looked into the house’s history and were unable to find anyone that might have been haunting it; especially because I always had a strange feeling the ghosts were children. Very friendly children that didn’t seem harmful, but just being there and the thoughts of them were creepy. We may never know if there were actual ghosts there and who they were, but both of us have decided that maybe slightly older homes are no longer for us and I pretty much don’t watch hardly any show or movie that involves a ghost (especially an angry one).

Luckily I’ve found that when I read ghost stories in books, I don’t get freaked out. So I can stomach reading about ghosts in Lisa’s books (with or without the lights off).

--Emily, Miss Querylicious