Creepiness in Louisiana

I became interested in the Myrtles Plantation after seeing a Ghost Hunters episode on Sci-Fi a few years ago. Apparently this Louisiana plantation was crawling ghosts, and the ghost hunting team did in fact have some success in uncovering some odd happenings. So when a friend suggested this book, I jumped at the chance to find out a little more about this mysterious place deep in the south.

Written by Frances Kermeen, owner of the Myrtles Plantation during the 1980s, we are told the history and the alleged ghostly encounters that have taken place there. Frances felt compelled to purchase the Myrtles after a brief visitation in 1980, and she and her then husband spent a good deal of time renovating and updating the plantation. Almost immediately upon taking possession, Frances began hearing unexplained noises and seeing strange lights and even faces. During the decade in which she owned the Myrtles, the odd events were almost a daily occurence, with many of the guests also having weird things happen. Though Frances loved the house, eventually her life fell apart (whether or not it was the house, as she hints), and she sold out and moved away around 1990. Fifteen years later she decided to write this rather dramatic tale of what went on while she lived on the property.

This is a good book, with lots of action and plenty of "evidence" that ghosts do indeed haunt the Myrtles. Frances admits to being dramatic (she even hosted several murder mystery weekends at the plantation) and this comes across throughout the book. The writing itself is a bit choppy and amateurish, but the book does flow and you can feel her enthusiasm for the place. I admit to being highly skeptical of some of the things Frances described (she really lost me with the "crying portraits") but I don't doubt for a second that she endured constant demonstrations of ghosts during her tenure at the Myrtles. My take is that some of the stories may have been embellished somewhat, but with so many people visiting the plantation and experiencing much the same activities, there must be something to the tales. This is a fun read and it did give me some interesting background into a fascinating home that's indeed alive...with history.

~taminator40