THE BLURB: Fictional haunted houses are disturbing enough, but how does it feel when the ghosts are real? When a genuine spectre invades your private space? Find out from the narrators of the following 13 true stories, where apparitions appear everywhere from detached homes on desirable streets to derelict buildings and isolated cottages.
Settle in for the frightening delights of tales such as:
- The fearsome family lookalike from another realm in On The Farm…
- The Grim Reaper in disguise to harvest a soul in Keeper Of The Flame…
- The ungodly guardian who sabotaged a game in Instrument Of Doom…
- The sinister spirit who hounded a pregnant woman in It’s Bad To Talk…
- The malign moraliser from London’s East End in Forbidden…
And remember, the door may be locked against the night, but the determined dead still have access to you and yours…
THE REVIEW: First of all, I have to thank author Tina Vantyler for creating that rarest of things: a book myself and my girlfriend can both enjoy. Our tastes in reading seldom cross over, but with this we found common ground. It was a magical thing!
My other half would never dream of picking up a horror novel, but when it comes to True Tales of the Supernatural, she’s well up for it. Go figure.
Lurking within these portentous pages are thirteen real life stories of ‘paranormal properties’, all eerily relayed by our ghastly guide Vantyler. (She’s not really ghastly. She actually seems very nice). Now, I will confess that I initially found the first person narrative to be a bit jarring, but I soon settled into it and enjoyed the sinister scenarios in all their spooky splendour. In fact, I enjoyed this book so much I read it a second time. I can’t tell you how rarely that happens.
My personal faves include Out of Hand, in which a young woman wakes in the dead of night to find herself being throttled by ghostly hands, Gateways, which is a fascinating account of living in an old house with a couple of portals, and The Visitants, which features that old horror movie staple, creepy children.
Gateways I found particularly intriguing as it highlights how quickly the paranormal becomes normal when it’s a fixture of everyday life. Of all the stories, Out of Hand is by far the most terrifying, and the young woman’s horror effectively conveyed. And in The Visitants we discover how several spectral children met their end, and it’s heart breaking. This one stayed with me. This is the sixth book in the author’s True Tales of the Supernatural series, with each volume focusing on a different aspect of the uncanny. I’ve already ordered another volume for my girlfriend and I to enjoy. Cue a big argument about who gets to read it first.
THE AUTHOR: Like many people who write about things that go bump in the night, phantoms and paranormal phenomena have fascinated journalist Tina Vantyler since her teens. Several macabre confrontations of her own have confirmed for her that, as Mr Shakespeare said, “There are more things in heaven and earth… than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.
There are seven books in her delightfully frightful ghost stories collection. Six are compilations of true ghost stories and one is Tina’s first volume of original short ghost horror tales. She’s planning plenty more spine-tingling stories – watch this space!
True Tales of the Supernatural Volume Six: Haunted Houses by Tina Vantyler is available now from Amazon.
RICHARD E. ROCK 
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