June, 1969. It's been three years since a serial killer walked the streets of Baltimore and changed Dara Burke's life forever. Now in high school, Dara's determined to enjoy her last summer before senior year. Until her aunt insists that Dara accompany her to Black Springs, West Virginia, to attend a distant cousin's wedding. Dara doesn't want to go. She'd never even met Cousin Isobel and small towns aren't her thing. But Dara rationalizes that she'll only be gone a few days. But when she arrives at Isobel's isolated ruin of a house in the woods, she feels a foreboding. As the wedding looms, Dara counts the days until she returns to Baltimore. Then disaster strikes when Isobel's odious fiance is murdered. While the police focus on Isobel, Dara knows there's more to the story. As she digs deeper into the murder, she uncovers a terrible secret that lurks beneath the surface of the seemingly idyllic mountain town. Slowly, Dara comes to realize that Black Springs is a place that holds the darkness close. A haunted land of secret hollows and dark waterfalls, the earth here is well-nourished with the blood and bones of folk who have gone before. Now, something stirs in the Blue Ridge. Something evil. With vivid prose and haunting imagery, Daryl Anderson weaves a tale of mystery and terror that will keep you turning the pages long into the night. Dive in if you dare, but beware: once you enter the Shenandoah, you may never leave.

Top Trails: Shenandoah National Park saves readers the time and frustration of finding the perfect hikes to suit their desires. Not only are there hundreds of miles of trails running like veins down and along a narrow mountain spine, but with millions of guests annually, Shenandoah National Park is a heavily visited destination. This book was conceived to make the backcountry majesty of Shenandoah more accessible to visitors. This easy-access, reference type guide presents a variety of hikes from which to choose. The majority of the hikes steer you toward the most scenic areas, giving you the opportunity to enjoy your time on the trail instead of behind someone's car. Most hikes seek solitude to maximize your Shenandoah experience. However, as the subtitle of this book suggests, there are some "must do" hikes that are popular. Consequently, a few hikes traverse popular and potentially crowded areas. Each hike has a "best times" that will help you manage the trails to your advantage. Day hiking is the best and most popular way to "break into" the Shenandoah wilderness. But for those with the inclination to see the mountain cycle from day to night and back again, many hikes in this book can be used by backpackers as well. Backpackers must follow park backcountry camping regulations and practice "leave no trace" wilderness-use etiquette. Backpackers can capture the changing moods of the mountains as day turns to night, as weather cycles with the sun, as the permanent park residents go about their business of surviving and reproducing. With the Top Trails winning formula of easy-to-follow maps for every hike, trail-feature charts, feature icons, "don't get lost" trail milestones, and GPS waypoints, readers can easily identify the right trail for their interests, abilities, and available time.

The abolitionist John Brown still roams the West Virginia panhandle--and beyond. In Lexington, a statue sheds real tears, mourning Virginians killed in battle. Decades of abuse at a sanatorium unleashed malevolent entities in Staunton. Spirits of Native Americans, Civil War soldiers and children frequent natural springs in Frederick County and caves near Strasburg. Ghosts stay free of charge at the nation's oldest inn in Middletown, and at the Natural Bridge Hotel, phantom children play in the halls. Visitors from beyond the grave enjoy live performances at several theaters in the region, while spectral soldiers gather for combat in the battlefields scattered throughout the area. Join Denver Michaels as he delves into folklore, eyewitness accounts and urban legends to bring you the best ghost stories from the Shenandoah Valley.

Ghosts of Gettysburg: Walking on Hallowed Ground is a keep-you-up-all-night book from real life master ghost hunters, Drs. Dave and Sharon Oester, cofounders of the International Ghost Hunters Society, the largest ghost research society on the Internet. Drs. Dave and Sharon Oester spend their time traveling the back roads of America, investigating some of its most haunted places. Over a six-year period, they explored and recorded the amazing ghostly experiences of visitors to the Gettysburg battlefield. One year they devoted a full month for battlefield investigations and drove over 1,000 miles on the battlefield gathering data for this book. Drs. Dave and Sharon Oester were the first to hold ghost conferences in Gettysburg teaching about ghost photography and electronic voice phenomena known as EVP. Their annual ghost conferences started the ghost hunting movement in Gettysburg. Drs. Dave and Sharon Oester share 40 haunted sites on the battlefield, not according to folklore, but from their own personal investigations using scientific tools to validate the existence of ghosts. Each haunted site contains a short history of its part in this three-day battle. Read about the ten most haunted Civil War hospitals sites that can be visited by the reader.

In 1950, Tony Bettellini is seven years old when his haunting beautiful mother, Clothilde, becomes the mistress of a powerful Harlem drug lord, Royston Carter, to escape a life of prostitution on the streets. Tony harbors deep inside him hidden terrors stemming from his early childhood. As the only white boy in a poor Negro gang, Tony experiences the colorful streets of Harlem for five years. However he despises the enigmatic Royston and runs away at the age of twelve, hanging around Times Square, where he struggles to survive, but develops his passion for acting. In 1967, Tony, a handsome, young Irish-Italian, is outwardly warm, funny and happy-go-lucky. He works in a famous old restaurant in Times Square, which attracts movie and Broadway stars, showgirls and celebrities. Unable to afford decent accommodation, he lives in a slum tenement on the Lower East Side, His best friends are long- haired Sonny Gracia, a Vietnam vet and anti-war activist, who lost a lower leg and his Vietnamese sweetheart while serving in the war, and a cute, feisty, seven-year-old Negro boy, Billy, who is a street child. Tony is having a tumultuous affair with glamorous, international model and heiress, Veronica Idlewilde, when he falls madly in love with a beautiful blond girl from Virginia, Shenandoah Buchanan. Sonny, too, falls hopelessly in love - but with his best friends girl! Terrible things to start to happen, which culminate in Tony being arrested for a brutal murder of a drug dealer. In the sensational trial that follows, the ruthless District Attorney for Manhattan, John Sirilli, is pushing for the death penalty. Set in the 1950s and the radical upheaval of the 1960s, Haunted by Shadows, is another unforgettable epic novel by the author Brenda George!

This collection of more than 100 ghost stories has entertained lovers of Virginia genealogy, history and folklore for generations. Mrs. Marguerite du Pont Lee, daughter of Eleuthere Irenee du Pont, humanitarian and campaigner for women's rights, was also a great student of psychic phenomena. This interest in the unexplained led her to gather tales of ghosts and the paranormal from around her adopted state, many of them dating back to the colonial period. Charmingly written and illustrated throughout, most of the tales (like the encounter of Warner Taliaferro of Belle Ville in Gloucester County with the spirit of his neighbor, Mrs. Tabb, on the night of her death) deal with ghosts sited at the venerable homesteads that proliferate in Virginia. Thus, for example, we have stories set at The Anchorage and Gunston Hall in the Alexandria area, Federal Hill and Traveller's Rest near Fredericksburg, Mount Airy and Woodlawn in the Tidewater, Edgewood and Westover near Richmond, Ash Lawn and Fairfield within the Piedmont, Carter Hall and Elmwood in the Shenandoah Valley, Ivanhoe and Ellerslie in Southside, and still other tales from the Eastern Shore, Southwest Virginia, and West Virginia. Many of the ghost stories, of course, concern early Virginians who materialize on the family trees of Virginia researchers.

Ghosts! Curses! Hoaxes! Unsolved mysteries! Paranormal events! Take a walk on the creepy side of North America's National Parks! Andrea Lankford, a 12-year veteran ranger with the National Park Service, has written a thoroughly investigated yet often tongue-in-cheek guidebook that takes the reader to the scariest, most mysterious places inside North America's National Parks. Lankford shares such eerie tales as John Brown's haunting of Harper's Ferry, the disembodied legs that have been seen running around inside the Mammoth Cave Visitor Center, and the "wailing woman" who roams the trail behind the Grand Canyon Lodge. Lankford also uncovers paranormal activities park visitors have experienced, such as the chupacabra that roams the swamps inside Big Thicket National Preserve and the teenage bigfoot who rolled a park service campground with toilet paper. She also reports on long-forgotten unsolved murders, such as the savage stabbing of a young woman on Yosemite's trail to Mirror Lake, and the execution style shooting of two General Motors executives at Crater Lake. The witnesses to the supernatural occurrences are highly credible people-rangers, park historians, river guides, and the like-and each tale has factual relevance to the cultural or natural history of the park. Haunted Hikes provides readers with all the information they need: for each hike: a "fright factor rating" is listed along with trailhead access information, detailed trail maps, and hike difficulty levels. Most of the haunted sites included in the book can be reached by the average hiker, some are wheelchair accessible, and others are for intrepid backpackers willing to make multi-day treks into wilderness areas. Intriguing photographs of many sites are included. Haunted Hikes is sure to satisfy readers looking for those spine-tingling moments when you begin to wonder if maybe, just maybe, we are not alone.

Hauntings lurk and spirits linger in the Old Dominion State Reader, beware! Turn these pages and enter the world of the paranormal, where ghosts and ghouls alike creep just out of sight. Author L. B. Taylor shines a light in the dark corners of Virginia and scares those spirits out of hiding in this thrilling collection. From poltergeists that make trouble at Blue Ridge Pottery, to a phantom light on Holston Mountain, to specters haunting the battlefield of Cedar Creek, there’s no shortage of bone-chilling tales to keep you up at night. Around the campfire or tucked away on a dark and stormy night, this big book of ghost stories is a hauntingly good read.

A lively, comprehensive guide to the southern Appalachians, from Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains to the Monongahela National Forest of West Virginia. With visitation levels that rival Orlando and New York City, the southern Appalachians draw a huge array of weekenders, adventurers, and long-term visitors. This book offers historical insight, outdoor adventure, and all the information most travelers need to plan and enjoy their journey. This guide also serves as an insider's handbook to the nine national parks, offering active travelers the best access points and trailheads for kayaking, biking, and hiking excursions. In addition, this comprehensive guide to the region includes opinionated listings of inns, B&Bs, hotels, and vacation cabins; hundreds of dining reviews, from barbecue to four-star cuisine; up-to-date maps; an alphabetical "What's Where" subject guide to aid in trip planning; and handy icons that point out family-friendly establishments, wheelchair access, places of special value, and lodgings that accept pets.

In Clarke County, the spirits of the past bring history to life. The ghost of a brokenhearted Confederate soldier stares out a window waiting in vain for the return of the love of his life. Victims of a plane crash still linger at the scene of the tragedy forty-five years later. Union troops are still crossing the Shenandoah River through a hail of musket balls and cannon fire. From the legendary phantom coach of Carter Hall to lesser-known haunts along the county's back roads, a rock-throwing poltergeist, a smoky figure in a bedroom and strange creatures lurking in the woods, Michael Hess brings you the very best in Clarke County ghost lore.