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Loved It!!Jan 09, 2007
This was such a wonderful book, with two of my greatest passions, lighthouses and ghosts. The only thing I'd like different would be more length to each story and history. But it gives you a page and a half on each one. Very interesting and historical. Definitely urge you to buy a copy! Great author, too.
6 of 6 found the following review helpful:
 Ghost Lights Run Amuck.Oct 30, 2004
For the millions of people who have fallen under the magical spell of America's lighthouses this is a book that really belongs on your shelf. The author has filled this book with not only ghost stories but also the history and personality of thirteen of America's most beautiful lighthouses. For the ghost enthusiast however, this will be light reading at best.
The ghost stories to be found in this book are interesting but are lacking in detail. There are some recent eyewitness accounts, which are always good, but the author seems to lack any real feeling for her subject. Each story is treated as a lighthearted story told just for fun instead of being a factual account of a real haunting. The words "maybe" and "perhaps" appear far to often in this book.
One chapter deals with the haunted light of Presque Isle, which has come under recent scrutiny. Some scientists have accounted for the mysterious light from a very explainable source but their investigation raised more questions than it answered. Apparently some very strange things happened while this team was at the lighthouse and while they could explain the light, they couldn't explain the other phenomena. Another chapter deals with the Hatteras sightings of the ghost of Theodosia Burr. The story is well told and more than one version of legend is presented but the author plays somewhat fast and loose with the historical facts concerning Burr's famous father. Another chapter deals with a pipe smoking ghost that suddenly changes to a cigar smoker at the end of the story. This is something that the editor should have caught.
Overall this is an interesting book and it can easily be read in one sitting. Lighthouse lovers will be far more enchanted with the book than will ghost hunters but even the ghostly crowd will find some good background information here. Best of all, at the end of each chapter there are directions to the site along with an address and sometimes a web site. It wasn't what I was hoping for but my time and money weren't wasted at all.
16 of 17 found the following review helpful:
Ghostly guardians of our ShoresMar 12, 2002
This is a lightweight, amiable guide of the sort you might pick up in a tourist trap on your way to Martha's Vineyard or Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The lighthouses described in the book are located on the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, and on the Great Lakes, with one on the Gulf of Mexico thrown in to make an `even' thirteen stories.The lighthouses and their keepers are meticulously described with some not-so-scary ghosts added as an extra tourist attraction. There are also black-and-white photographs of each lighthouse and/or the keepers' residence, along with directions on how to find them. Some of the lighthouses or keepers' dwellings are bed-and-breakfasts, so you can check out the phantoms during an overnight stay if you so desire. All of the stories are supposedly authentic, so take a flashlight with you in case the big beacon fails---or turns on when it shouldn't (see the story of the Old Presque Isle Light Station on Lake Huron.) The saddest story involves the history of the St. Augustine Lighthouse in Florida, where there are a multiplicity of spirits to choose from, including one who smokes cigars. The smallest phantom might be the daughter of a nineteenth-century lighthouse keeper: she was killed along with two of her friends, when a tram used to haul supplies from the dock to a construction site, "suddenly broke loose, hurtled down the rails, and dumped the three girls into the water. All of them drowned."
8 of 10 found the following review helpful:
 A must for lighthouse buffs, and lovers of ghost stories.Aug 18, 1999
Anyone who has a romance with lighthouses like I do, and likes great stories like I do, will love this book. I certainly do. 'Excellent writing and photography too.
8 of 10 found the following review helpful:
Intriguing and fascinatingAug 11, 1999
Once you start reading "Lighthouse Ghosts", you will not want to put it down! Anyone interested in lighthouses and their history will thoroughly enjoy reading this book. The stories of the lighthouse keepers and their families are fascinating. I want to go visit every one of them! The stories are very easy to read and understand, and some of them give you shivers up your spine! I really enjoyed reading this work, and I hope another book on some more haunted lighthouses is printed soon!
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based on 5 reviews
