Wednesday, March 16, 2022

Book Review - Haunted Florida- More Strange than Haunted

 Some friends of ours were vacationing in Florida back in 2013 and sent us a book called "Haunted Florida: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Sunshine State." It has been in my book basket since then (yes, 9 years) and I finally decided to give it a read. I have to admit, that because there was nothing personal in it, and I was expecting more hauntings than weird stories. 

   Having written several of my own paranormal books and all were based on my experiences, I was expecting that the authors may have had some of their own experiences and included them in the book. That wasn't the case. There were no personal experiences. All of these stories were researched and summarized from other sources (the Bibliography section was two full pages). That was disappointing to me. In fact, I don't know why they wrote the book - because there's nothing in it that indicates any fascination with the paranormal. That was missing in the introduction. 

One author had previously written about Florida history, which explains the historic detail in the book (which was very good, but at times very, very detailed), and the other had written a self-help book. The historian author obviously did her research and was good at it nad has written other books, strictly about Florida history.

  The book seemed to me to be more about weird phenomena and possible ghost sightings. Although there were a couple of stories that really stood out as bizarre- like a 50-something man who married the "angel" he's been looking for, and when she died he removed her body from the mausoleum he built for her and brought her corpse in his house. That was bizarre - not a ghost story, just a story of a mentally ill man obsessed with someone. 

 The book is organized by area of the state, which makes it easier to find stories in each region, but if you're planning to use it to go "ghost hunting" or look for haunted places, you may not find it the best resource. 

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Who I am

I'm a simple guy who enjoys the simple things in life, especially our dogs. I volunteer for dog rescues, enjoy exercising, blogging, politics, helping friends and neighbors, participating in ghost investigations, coffee, weather, superheroes, comic books, mystery novels, traveling, 70s and 80s music, classic country music,writing books on ghosts and spirits, cooking simply and keeping in shape. You'll find tidbits of all of these things on this blog and more. EMAIL me at Rgutro@gmail.com - Rob

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