#TopTenTuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl
Topic of the Week: Halloween Freebie!
Jorie’s topic for A. Lawrence:
Top Ten Reasons Why Being a Ghost Hunter is a Spookifed Experience ??
Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!
I LOVE Halloween – which is why I’ve been wickedly thrilled to bits our little #SpooktasticReads readathon and celebration of spooky reads has become quite the success these past three years we’ve held it! For those who are unfamiliar – I happily co-host @WyrdAndWonder (ie. #WyrdAndWonder) every May to celebrate Fantasy with Imyril (@Imyril) and Lisa (@deargeekplace) wherein every October we have this lovely fortnight chasing up to Halloween to talk, blog and share everything we love about the spookier reads which give us the most joy to be reading!
I have my own special read for this year’s #SpooktasticReads involving the paranormal which is the final chapter in the Tipsy Fairy Tales trilogy by E. Chris Garrison – of which you can happily read my reviews for the first two stories: “Blue Spirit” (see also Review) and “Restless Spirit” (see also Review). This year’s #SpooktasticReads is going to be set round my readings of the conclusion of this series which is called “Mean Spirit”! Whilst I am re-visiting the world within the start of how everything came together for Skye within the audiobook version of “Blue Spirit” which was not yet released at the time I read the story in print.
For this week’s #TopTenTuesday, I wanted to do something special and a bit different – which is why I decided to creatively come up with a fun topic for the author whilst hosting this lovely blog tour which is celebrating a new ghostly series! I love hosting Indie Authors and this #SpooktasticReads I am hopeful those who are joining us and thos who are following us are finding a heap of lovelies to add to their #mustread lists!
Today it is an honour to host a new blog tour with Storytellers on Tour – a blog touring company whose championing Indie Storytellers and giving us all a lovely chance to feature their collective works. I am looking forward to working with them as oft as I can and I look forward to the conversations and features which hosting will inspire to bring to my readers on Jorie Loves A Story!
Brew yourself a cuppa and let’s find out more about ghosts!
Ghost Punch
Subtitle: Grave Reflection
by A. Lawrence
Another Friday night, another trip through a potentially haunted house. Shay’s not a believer, but she’s willing to help her best friend, Max, with their amateur ghost hunting show. Little does she know she is about to be thrown into a world of witches and dangerous spirits.
With newly discovered abilities, Shay finds that she can both see and touch spirits. The downside is, the ghosts can touch her back, and it seems that they’ll do anything to get a hold of her.
She was never much of a ghost hunter. How will she do when she is the one being hunted?
Grave Reflectionis the first book of Ghost Punch,
an exciting paranormal series full of mystery and action!
Places to find the book:
ASIN: B08DSS7J5B
Published by Self Published
on 30th July, 2020
Top Ten Reasons Why Being a Ghost Hunter
is a Spookifed Experience
by A. Lawrence
Ghost hunting. Whether you are trying to reveal the mysteries of the afterlife,
or you’re just a thrill seeker, it can be a spooky hobby.
I do all of my ghost hunting in very rural areas, so my list is skewed in that direction,
but here are my top ten for why being a ghost hunter is a spookified experience.
10. You start hanging out in some really weird places
And you completely lose your sense of self preservation.
I have spent way more time than I feel comfortable staying in old cemeteries, abandoned buildings, and a few times old churches. Friday night? Perfect time to check out that weird field behind the Big Lots that I thought I saw someone standing in when I drove by.
9. You find out the strangest things work as equipment
Ghost hunting equipment is expensive. I’m an amatuer so I mostly use apps on my phone, but sometimes I don’t even need those.
We were driving up in the hills in a friend’s car. He likes to go fast, so logically he has a radar detector installed. It was getting late and with little to no self preservation skills to stop us, we decided to stop at an abandoned water park on the way home. For fun.
We all got out and looked around and the radar detector started to beep, so we decided to not go inside. It beeped a few more times.
There was literally no one else up there. It was in the middle of the foothills surrounded on all sides by sage brush and not much else.
It turns out that radar detectors can also detect EMF, electric and magnetic fields. Since this park had been abandoned since the 90s, it definitely wasn’t anything in there setting it off.
8. Listening to EVPs (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) on the way home and nearly crashing the car.
It was 2 or 3 in the morning. One of my teammates and I were heading home after wrapping up a session in a local cemetery. I was listening through the EVP stuff, looking for anything exciting, when it happened.
“What’s this?” one of our friends asked.
Through the car speakers comes the creepiest voice I have ever captured: “It’s a grave.”
My teammate slammed on the brakes. Luckily it was super late, and we were on a back road in the middle of the country. We listen through it about five more times. Right after the voice I say “oh it’s a grave”. Exciting, but we didn’t listen to EVPs in the car after that.
7. Finding the perfect little cemetery to investigate, until…
Living in the middle of nowhere, back before twitter was a thing, I did a lot of just driving around with friends. That’s how we found this tiny cemetery out in the middle of the potato fields. Literally nothing else for miles around.
So of course we had to check it out.
We got out of the car and I swear the air grew thick, the sky was darker than it had been, the moon shining on the white headstones and the large statue of a tree in the middle of the graveyard.
I would love to investigate, but the feeling in that cemetery was too much, even for me.
We left.
6. Having a teammate confirm that yes, the house you’re currently watching is haunted
I was house sitting for three weeks while my friends finished selling a house in another state. Things are going fine until I start hearing voices of an older woman and a little girl and people walking around upstairs.
Besides their cat, I was completely alone.
So I called my teammate up and he came right over to help me investigate. After a few hours we both decided it was “definitely haunted” and we’d probably get some great evidence.
I still had to stay there for three weeks, but at least I knew I wasn’t going crazy.
5. Having something follow you home
Sometimes this is scary. You’re walking back into the house and see something dark and tall following your friend. You burn some lavender and hope it does the trick.
Sometimes, it’s just odd. You see things out of the corner of your eye. Something peers around the corner from the kitchen for a few weeks, but doesn’t cause any trouble and eventually fades away.
And sometimes, you have to tell your roommate that you have a new roommate, his name is apparently Luke, and he doesn’t pay rent.
4. You can never just go enjoy nightly activities like stargazing.
Out in the middle of nowhere, trying to watch a meteor shower, and you hear footsteps? You bet I’m already on my feet, phone out, telling everyone we have to check it out. On that note….
3. If you hear a spooky sound, or a scary story, and your reaction is to go towards it.
You hear a noise. Your friend says “did you hear that?”
Now that you know two people have heard it, it’s go time. We’re going to go find a ghost or possibly a serial killer.
I once hopped a fence into an abandoned insane asylum just to get a better look. Didn’t even think about it until later and realized it was a really bad idea. Anyone could have been in there.
2. Sometimes it’s not even the ghosts that are scary, it’s the locals
Around eleven o’clock one night we decided to drive out to a park that had quite a few reported sightings. How else would we spend a Saturday night? There was a little dirt road to get to the parking area, nothing too weird for a small town.
There was a car parked there.
We debated what to do but finally park a few spaces down from them and get out. Maybe it was teenagers making out. Maybe even other ghost hunters.
It wasn’t.
Three people in their twenties are standing next to the car, holding rifles, watching us.
We left.
1. Looking through pictures later and… oh that was definitely not a ghost and we almost died.
Living and working in much more rural areas, you have to sift out what’s an animal and what’s not. Sometimes, you don’t figure it out until later.
We were investigating a cemetery out in the hills. Had a few strange noises, but nothing too exciting.
I saw what looked like two little lights. They moved together, and started coming closer. We snapped a few photos and decided to call it a night.
We looked through the pictures later and found out it wasn’t a ghost at all.
It was a mountain lion.
This blog tour is courtesy of:
Follow the Virtual Road Map
as you visit others participating:
As this particular one has a bookaway along the route:
NOTE: Similar to blog tours wherein I feature book reviews, book spotlights (with or without extracts), book announcements (or Cover Reveals) – I may elect to feature an author, editor, narrator, publisher or other creative person connected to the book, audiobook, Indie film project or otherwise creative publishing medium being featured wherein the supplemental content on my blog is never compensated monetarily nor am I ever obligated to feature this kind of content. I provide (98.5%) of all questions and guest topics regularly featured on Jorie Loves A Story. I receive direct responses back to those enquiries by publicists, literary agents, authors, blog tour companies, etc of whom I am working with to bring these supplemental features and showcases to my blog. I am naturally curious about the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of stories and the writers who pen them: I have a heap of joy bringing this content to my readers. Whenever there is a conflict of connection I do disclose those connections per post and disclose the connection as it applies.
This Top Ten Tuesdsay is part of my #SpooktasticReads readathon, wherein I am going to be selecting stories off my bookshelves which are either spooky & ghoulish or delightfully ghastly in a quirky sort of way which makes you feel a slight chill but won’t leave you wanting to light a lantern at night to keep the darkness away! This #SpooktasticReads I am happily delving back into stories about *ghosts, witches, paranormal suspense & the lighter side of Cosy Horror* as I make my route through #SpooktasticReads one story at a time whilst finding myself on a lovely literary holiday! Join me!?
This lovely event is via @WyrdAndWonder | with my co-hosts @imyril & @deargeekplace
Full details on #SpooktasticReads via Always Room for One More (Imyril’s blog)
{SOURCES: Book cover for “Grave Reflection: Ghost Punch”, book synopsis, author biography, author photograph of A. Lawrence, the tour banner and book tour banner as well as the promotional graphics (with artwork from the series) were all provided by Storytellers on Tour and are used with permission. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets were embedded due to codes provided by Twitter. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: #TopTenTuesday banner, #SpooktasticReads banner and the Comment Box Banner.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2020.
I’m a social reader | I tweet my reading life
This #SpooktasticReads I had the chance to create a #spookyreads topic for a lovely #IndieAuthor whose written a new #ghoststory!?LOVE #TopTenTuesday and this is my entry for a spookified Halloween week entry – featuring A. Lawrence and @sot_tours!?? https://t.co/C4OOuYFSqT pic.twitter.com/YtFlsSjqL8
— Wyrd and Wonder (@wyrdandwonder) October 27, 2020
This kinda thing would freak me out. :) The people holding rifles would be weird- like, what are they doing?
I don’t believe in ghosts IRL, but I do enjoy a good ghost story – as long as it’s not too scary :) Ghost-hunting is not for me, but my oldest is very into it. A few months ago, he and his sister went to stay at a haunted hotel here in Arizona. They paid big money to get the most haunted room and … nothing happened. He was so disappointed! He said the scariest thing about it was the prices at the attached restaurant. LOL.
Happy TTT!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
Hallo, Hallo Susan,
*waves!* So thankful to see you on my blog today – I woke up feeling miserable and had a hard night. All the emotoins with the situation over my loss of trees has rendered me quite ill. The extra noise pollution and destruction of the yard isn’t sitting well with me either – whilst all told, I wish I could just relocate and leave this region altogether. One bit of joy was putting this post together today whilst I spent most of the day offline recovering and resting – it was nice to come on twice now to find comments and notes waiting me!! What a lovely pick me up! Bless you.
I had to laugh about the haunted hotel — for whichever reason, I don’t think ghosts like to come out on queue! I’ve heard similar stories before and generally I’ve heard better results about people who go ghosting themselves. A few years back I reviewed a book about finding haunted sites to visit – maybe your son might enjoy picking up one of these books and having it a go himself?
I love a wicked good ghost story myself – I still would love to read the rest of the Edith Wharton Ghost Stories which I reviewed partially in the past as I wasn’t able to read the whole collection before the book had to be returnt to the library.
Thanks for dropping by today! Especially as I love celebrating Halloween and try to give my spooky reads recommedations every year! From Cosy Horror to Paranormal Suspense to Gothic Lit and all routes betwixt and between!! #Blessed you’ve found this special post! PS: I’m unsure if this are the author’s IRL experiences ghost hunting OR if these are snippets of the novel!!
It’s so good to see a post from you on Top Ten Tuesday again, Jorie. :)
I love Halloween, too. Is it also your favourite holiday of the year? It sure is my favourite.
My post.
Hallo, hallo Lydia!
It has been a grieviously long time since I’ve been able to participate again for Top Ten Tuesday, that is true! I’ve had a lot of ideas for posts but this was the first time I could see those ideas get onto my blog! I was wrecked by 8x migraines in September which felt like a wash-out month to me, and I thankfully only had 2x migraines this October! By far, Autumn is agreeing with me more than Spring and Summer; even though our weather feels like Summer’s wrath hasn’t quite ended yet! I’d much prefer the weather patterns to be lower than the humid temperatures but just to see a decrease in my migraines is a lovely way to start October. This past week, I was aggrieved by the loss of 40+ year old cedar trees in my yard – you can find a *thread about it on Twitter and I mentioned it a few times already on my blog – however, it was such a hit to my soul and heart. I’ve known those trees for five years and sadly, due to inept city planning no one could sort out a way to modify their designs and plans to *keep!* the trees which were not just alive but thriving. So that’s been on my mind recently,.. whilst I have been enjoying #SpooktasticReads this year.
In response to your Q: I LOVE Halloween as much as I love the Day of the Dead and All Soul’s / All Saint’s Day. This is the holiday season which starts my favourite time of the year and it is brilliant Imyril and Lisa love it as much as I do as we’ve been celebrating #SpooktasticReads for three years now officially. As it was an idea I had a bit before we launched it and I’ve been delighted seeing it gain traction with others in the book blogosphere. I’d love to do more for Halloween but my Halloween’s have become a bit lo-key in recent years. You’ll see more posts for me soon as a lot of my posts from last week were waylaid by connectivity and tech issues which wrecked my mojo for the readadthon a bit. *le sigh*
So thankful you’ve enjoyed this special guest post for Top Ten Tuesday – I loved creating the topic and loved how the author responded! I have another special treat for Top Ten Tuesday in November with a new guest post as well! I’m going to try to keep posting TTT throughout November with themes interconnecting with my Sci-Fi and Fantasy reads, too. Thank you for supporting me! I’ll drop by your lovely blog a bit lateron today.