Rainbow Reviews

BOOK BLURB:
This book is the first-ever collection of LGBT ghost stories from across the United States and around the world. Emphasis is placed on the history and crimes involved at the haunted locations whenever possible; who the ghosts were when alive is more important than the spookiness of the tales. Many places are also opened to the public (including bars, restaurants, museums, and inns) and contact information is given so the reader may visit to see if the legends and witnessed phenomena are true.

BOOK REVIEW:
Utterly, absolutely fascinating reading; a must-have for paranormal enthusiasts and lovers of ghostly lore, regardless of sexual orientation.

Although they are collected from far-flung places including England, Ireland, Wales, and the African island of Zanzibar (which boasts a terrifying, vampire-like incubus who victimizes sleeping men), the majority of these tales are from the United States. Some of the ghosts in question are famous: Liberace, Valentino, James Whale, Harvey Milk, Lizzie Borden. (Who even knew that Lizzie Borden was a lesbian?) Others were ordinary people who only wanted to go about their lives before something tragic happened, like the victims of the 1973 Upstairs Lounge fire in the New Orleans French Quarter.

The lives of the people who populate this volume are as like to send chills (chills of sympathy and horror over the tragedies, the lives lost, the interrupted and misunderstood loves) down your spine as the hauntings themselves. Ken Summers is an engaging storyteller, though some of the tales are rather more abrupt than I would have liked.

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