Maryse's Book Blog

Following my heart, one book at a time...

ghosts

B.N. Toler – Where One Goes Series Reading Order

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OMG THIS ONE SOUNDS AMAZING (the premise is so unique and already haunting me!!) & there’s huge love for it amongst our book crew. And guess what? The sequel just went LIVE!!

Anne: Wow this book!! I cried so much but in a good way. It was pretty unique and the love story is so sweet and heartbreaking I couldn’t put it down.

Ruth: where one goes<<<< this one was worth an ugly cry as u call it.

D.G.: Good morning peeps!!! Had to stop reading this morning because I didn’t want to RUIN my makeup from BAWLING my eyes out! UGH! SO GOOD that I just had to put it down so I can SAVOR my crying jag later when I have time! Where One Goes by BN Toler. Maryse- have you read it?!? Lots of feels… read more

Reader Question – The book about the girl that falls in love with a ghost when she travels to help her father's sick friend…

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Tammy needs our book help! Okay so go slowly with this one as Tammy describes the whole book to us, and it sounds incredible (even though I know the ending now).

I included spoiler alerts so you can stop before the big reveal. 😉

She asks:

Please help. I read this book in 2007 about an American girl who travels to either Ireland or Scotland because she gets a letter addresssed to her father who specializes in tropical medicine.

Anyway her father is dead but she stills travel to see her father’s friend who need help because he is on his death bed. read more

Happy Halloween! So, hey! I have a ghost story for ya… (my trip to the RT Book Lovers Convention 2015 – Recap Part 3…)

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My BFF Sherry, Me, author J.B. Salsbury & her BFF Evelyn! J.B. & Evelyn chickened out! 😛

It’s true. A real life one. One that is long overdue to be told, in fact (you’ll see part one and part two of that author signing trip here – part 2 gets spookier 😉 ), but it’s part three (THIS post) that had the real spook-factor.
The evidence, if you will. Now of course, there will be some non-believers and skeptics that say “WHAT?? I don’t believe you and that photo shows nothing!!” but the fact that I caught something that I saw with my own eyes? I KNOW I had my own ghostly encounter at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas Texas. And it was awesome!
Author Mary Elizabeth and me!! 😀 She chickened out. 😉

Okay so here’s how it went. It involved my BFF Sherry, author Amber L. Johnson and me (and almost a couple of chickens. Er… not real chickens. Just a couple of friends that totally chickened out on us.) *ahem* sideeyes authors Mary Elizabeth, J.B. Salsbury and her bff, Evelyn Johnson. *pok pok* 😉 Yeah I sold y’all out! 😛
Anyway, so it’s our last night in Dallas, our last night at the Adolphus, and we’d been telling our fun ghost-hunting story to everyone that would listen, and we almost amassed another group. But our trio was good enough (and brave!!).
We head right back up to the creepy and forbidden 19th floor. All three of us. At night, alone up there, it’s dark, and nobody knows where we are. Well, I mean, Mary Elizabeth and J.B. Salsbury knew, so if we went missing, I’m sure they would have sent someone up there after us. 😉
So we go up there… searching around and giggling, but we head right to the area around HER room. The dead bride’s room.
Me and author Amber L. Johnson (our fellow ghost hunter for that night). 😉

It’s DARK, and as Sherry and Amber roam further down the hall, I enter her lights-out-dark room. I’m looking around, trying to see as best as I can (from the little bit of light coming in through the windows from outside lighting), and I hear a door slam further away. I hear the girls gasp, freak out a bit and giggle, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. I know I’m going to head where they are soon enough and find out what they’re playing with.
I’m listening to them wondering what they just got into, while I lift my iPhone and take a random photo of HER room (I can’t see anything so I’m not actually looking at my phone screen).
As I do, the flash on my phone activates ’cause it’s so dark and I can’t see anything. I snap the photo, and suddenly I see, with my very own eyes, right there in front of me… a small sort of… glowing white (light?)… ball.
It JOLTS from right in front of me, to the right side of the room… and disappears. It MOVED with purpose. Almost as if I startled it!!! eekeek As if the flash of my camera startled it.
And it was gone.
I realized… it was an actual orb!!! I was in AWE. This was not some flash-reflection off a mirror (there were no mirrors).
This was a perfect sphere, small and obvious… light, that practically FLEW away from me. I was thrilled. Elated. Freaked out, but strangely not scared at all. I almost felt bad for disturbing it. Her?
One of the creepy elevators… going… up? (We were very likely heading to the 19th floor, here).

After taking a few more photos really quickly, I ran out of the room, only to be met by my fellow ghost hunters that caught that door slam on audio!! Sherry was recording with her Kindle… and while she didn’t catch the image of the door, she caught the sound of that door slamming ON OUR FLOOR, and then of course, their own freaked-out reactions. We were the ONLY ones on that floor. It was a ghost-town (maybe quite literally!). No rooms were occupied, the doors to the rooms didn’t even lock anymore. All the furniture was upside down, and covered. We knew it was just us. Who would have slammed that door? Our eyes bugging wide, I told them about what I had just seen.
And as I scrolled through the photos I had just taken… I see that in one photo, the first one of the series (that “activated” her)… I caught the orb.
Top left of the photo below, going to the right… in front of the head board. Open it BIG!! You actually see (in larger format) a secondary movement-glow coming off that obvious one going to the right. I didn’t do that, you guys. No retouching. I SWEAR. This is from my iPhone with nothing else added.
Okay… I know it’s not mind-blowing evidence, but I know what I saw with my own eyes when the flash went off. I saw it startle, and then jolt across the room away from me… and then it disappeared. And in that fluke of a photo-capture, there she is, at the headboard… in motion. eek I’M SERIOUS YOU GUYS!!!!! FOR REAL SERIOUS!! :D!!!!

eekeekeekeek!!!!
And that’s it. That’s my story. 😉
Okay now you go!!! :D!!
*rubs hands together hoping for some creepy stories*
P.S. Here we are, reminiscing about that moment (JB started us off) 😉 : read more

Reader Question – The book with the realtor that is trying to sell a haunted house…

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Tasha needs our book help, and this one is PERFECT for this time of year. Halloween and this book has ghosts.

She asks:

Maryse, I have a book question for you. I read a book, probably 5 years ago now and it keeps popping into my head and I’m curious what else the author has written.

It was a book about a realtor, a man, kind of a big shot I think, has a female boss who is a jerk, I think, who has to sell a house. The house is haunted, it has a carriage house too.

And there’s a woman, I don’t remember her job. Maybe she works as an assistant there or something, but she has a side gig in a band, like jazz or something. I think she was kind of most or nerdy, but came alive with her band. read more

Book Review – The House by Christina Lauren

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The House
You know how some people get too attached to their home? Well… what happens when a house gets too attached to its people? This.

<— Good stuff but a bit different from what I was anticipating. Well… the “base” of it, that is. A few of us lightly skimmed the blurb (we were hoping to go in blind) and envisioned a young married couple setting up in their new house. Would it be haunted? Or maybe a ghost love story? Ohhhhh yesssss!! We were in no matter what!! And we were highly enticed by the fear-factor warning. But… it ended up being… completely different from expected… at first. read more