Haunted North Carolina: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Tar Heel State

Stackpole Haunted Series

by Patty A. Wilson

North Carolina is rich in Native American, Colonial, and Civil War history, and this heritage brings stories of ghosts and creatures from coastal tidewater to the western mountains. Readers will encounter the spirit of infant Virginia Dare in the form of a white deer, shipwreck survivors guided by ghosts to safety, a Halifax County reverend's encounter with the Devil, phantom marauders at Hannah's Creek Swamp, the spirit who directed his will from the grave, hauntings in the State Capitol, and mysterious figures at Devil's Stairs.

Genres: Paranormal, Nonfiction, Ghosts, Folklore, History

168 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2009

Reviews

[Justin Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

While visiting NC i got the old itch to find any books about the state's mysteries and ghosts and buy them. As a kid i loved to do that and read about that stuff and now as an adult, i can spend my own money on books like that all willy nilly!

But yeah HAUNTED NORTH CAROLINA covers a bit more stories and accounts (if i learned anything, its that North Carolina has a lot more ghosts than creatures) but like Sara Pitzers MYTHS AND MYSTERIES this one is more focused on telling you about a lot more spooky accounts than diving into them. Nonetheless, this is a nice and quick read that, truth be told, did have me watching my back in the North Carolina night

[Christie · Rating 2 out of 5]

North Carolina is a storied land.

This was a pretty weak North Carolina ghost story book. Most books have a storytelling aspect, this one is very flat. Most of the stories found here can be found in better books. If you are looking for a North Carolina ghost story book try Fred Morgan or Nancy Roberts over this book.

[Ashley (ashleysbookthoughts) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories in this anthology are mostly based on historical record. Unfortunately, to make it “haunted,” most every story ends with “and they say you can still see x on a clear night.” I say unfortunately, because it’s such a trite ending to stories that are fairly interesting in their own right as creepy mysteries. The lost colony of Roanoke and ships that are found wrecked in calm weather with no sign of the crew don’t need an added bit of supernatural flair to be eerie.

All in all, though, if you’re a North Carolinian looking for local, supposedly true ghost stories, this is a pretty good collection.

CW: colonialism, violent deaths, romanticism of slavery

[Tess · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was okay. There's an impressive number of tales packed into this slim volume with smallish sans-serif type, and a few good nuggets of stories in here. But the writing is at a grimace-emoji level of melodramatic, and there's a rampant overuse of the word "beloved." A good ghost story should stand on its own, be able to be told simply, and you shouldn't have to scratch away layers of flowery, fake language just to get at the core of it.

One thing that also really bugs me is when a writer tries to blend reality (historical fact) with fiction (ghost story) and does it badly. Spoiler: it's almost always done badly. There were a couple of stories in here that were 99% Wikipedia article regurgitated about a historical event, with a clumsy ghost-related sentence tacked on. Okay, fine. Bit of a waste of time. But worse still, there are times when specific locations or events are mentioned to set a scene, and even these supposedly reality-based tidbits were wrong and would have been easily fact-checkable by the author with a quick google search. If the framing is "You probably know about X, but did you also know about Y?" where X is the historical fact / real place and Y is the legend or ghost story, why the devil would you not bother to make sure X is actually true? The art of telling ghost stories still requires a reliable narrator—in fact, I would say that your credibility, even to the truest of believers, hinges just as much on the truths you tell as in any non-fiction enterprise. That's the crux of the magic: the idea that the storyteller can point to something tangible that you know for fact, and redirect your gaze to just a degree to the side of that fact, and blow your mind with something new and mysterious. Anyway, this author sucks at that. End rant!

[Elaina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read a couple paranormal collection books and this one was written a lot better than most of them. Still, I wish it was more like a collection of short stories than some random information. It is presented in such a disjointed manner and so much seems left out or unfinished… and not in a way that appears deliberate.

[Terrell Tucker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the month to read creepy stuff. Ghost stories and books on weird stuff by authors if questionable veracity. I mean folks like Madame Blavatsky, Charles Fort, John Mack (a Harvard trained psychiatrist), and the great folkloric Nancy Roberts and Beth Scott and Michael Norman. And don't forget Doyle, Poe and even Shakespeare.

Oh the book! It was fun!