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Category Archives: Ghost stories

Ferryman by Claire McFall

13 Thursday May 2021

Posted by truebooktalks in Ghost stories, Mythology, Uncategorized, Young Adult

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afterlife, death

Dylan is involved in a deadly train crash in a tunnel in Scotland after she took off to meet the father she has never known. She wakes up and begins to make her way out of the wreckage. Her cell phone doesn’t work, and she has no idea where she is. She thinks she has survived unscathed, but she couldn’t be more mistaken. She is dead and actually in a wasteland that is being created by her own memories, thoughts and fears. She must cross this wasteland to get to her afterlife destination. After she emerges from the tunnel, she meets a teenage boy sitting on a rock. Tristan tells her she is to come with him, and since she has no other choice, she follows him. Gradually she learns that she is dead and that Tristan is her Ferryman. It is his job is to guide Dylan’s soul safely across the treacherous landscape, a journey he has made a thousand times before. Only this time, something’s different. What occurs between Dylan and Tristan is not the usual things that have occurred during crossings.

What happens to us when we die is a question that is ever in our minds. The answers we accept are determined by our understanding of the essence of man–his soul. Our concept of death and the possibility of life after death is the major theme of this book. McFall pulls ideas from several religions and mythologies of the past to explain what is going on in her story. The idea of a ferryman is, of course, taken from the myth of Charon who ferried the dead across the River Styx. Tristan is not the dirty fearful image of Charon. He is able to take on whatever form is needed for the newly dead to willingly agree to go with him on the journey to the next life. In this case, he is a young teen-age boy who is attractive to the girl who has been killed in a train wreck. Is it possible for the dead to love another being? Is it possible for the ferryman to love someone? Is it possible for the dead to return to this world? All these questions McFall answers very satisfactorily for the reader. I highly recommend this novel for teen readers.

I understand that Ferryman (with its sequels,Trespassers and Outcasts) is in development to be a major motion picture.

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Forbidden by Eve Bunting

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by truebooktalks in Ghost stories, Historical Fiction, Young Adult

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Fiction, movie material, teen readers

forbiddenBunting has told us a chilling tale based on events that really happened off the coasts of northwestern Scotland. In the story, Josie Ferguson goes to live with her father’s brother and his wife in an isolated village that people from other towns have little to do with.  Her relatives are emotionally cold to her, but they have accepted the responsibility to care for her until she reaches eighteen – not out of any sort of love, but because they will get money for doing so.

A young man named Eli shows up at her uncle’s home and she is drawn to him because he has a way of dealing with the family’s dog – a dog that had bitten her when she tried to go outside one night. Eli takes her to his aunt’s home to get the bite treated before it can get infected.  His aunt, rather cryptically, tells her that she cannot get emotionally involved with Eli because he is a “reporter” and is “forbidden.”

She manages to isolate the dog one day when her aunt and uncle are out on their fishing boat and goes into town to see if she can find at least one sympathetic ear.  She finds that the townspeople are as strange as her aunt and uncle, and that they have  some sort of secret which ties them together.

The entire town engages in “wrecking,” the practice of stripping wrecked ships of all saleable items that can be saved from ships that have been wrecked on the rocks of the firth.  Technically nothing can be salvaged as long as an animal or a man from the wreck was still alive.   That did not stop the “wreckers;” they just made sure that no one was breathing.

Josie finds out that her uncle and aunt are tied into the wreckers, and they actually lead ship to their destruction, but with Eli’s help, she manages to escape their grasp before she must take part in “wrecking.”

This is a fantastic ghost story, one of the best I have read lately.  The setting reminds me of Wuthering Heights, but the plot is different.  I think teen readers will greatly enjoy this tale.

 

 

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Notes From Ghost Town by Kate Ellison

09 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by truebooktalks in Ghost stories, Mystery and Suspense

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Fiction, ghost stories, mystery, teen readers

ghost town     I like ghost stories if they are somewhat believable.   Ghosts who can kill or otherwise hurt people are just plain ridiculous to me.  This one is a great read. All the way through it I kept thinking, “Maybe Olivia is really just hallucinating and imagining things.”  This tension of reality and impossibility makes for a great tale.

Ellison has given us this enjoyable story: How can Olivia, a girl whose mother is in jail for killing a boy, even begin to believe that her mother didn’t do it since the police found her with the body and covered in his blood?  Maybe Stern, the ghost of the boy who was killed, will be able to make her see that her mother is innocent.  But, since her mother already had mental problems, that may be a little unlikely, especially since Olivia thinks she is now losing her mind.  Seeing a ghost is not Olivia’s only problem. She had just begun art school when the murder happened, and she returned home – not just to comfort her father and be comforted by him, but also because she could no longer see colors. The inability to see colors is not something an artist can handle very well.  If she tells anyone about this, she is convinced they will think she is also losing her mind.  Once Stern convinces her that her mother is really innocent, she must prove that to the police and keep her visual problem a secret– not an easy task.

I recommend this for any middle school or high school student.  Readers of mysteries will enjoy it, and readers of the paranormal will also relish the tale.  Parents need not worry about sex, drugs or bad behavior.

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