Customer Reviews

Grave's End

5 star:		(87)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Over the years I have read enough ghost books to fill a small library, most of which are the familiar collections of several stories written by one author. Many of these writers are old pros and have a very polished writing style; sometimes a little too polished and detached in fact. Elaine Mercado is a new writer and sometimes it shows, but her candor and vulnerability is a refreshing change for the fans of this type of book. It is also nice to hear the story from the point of view of the person who experienced the haunting rather than a third party interviewer.

The story begins as the author and her husband purchase a new home and move in. Almost from the outset the family begins to feel as if they are being watched and things escalate from there. All of the family is effected but the author and her eldest daughter seem to get the brunt of the storm. A storm that only intensifies as time goes on. To add to the problem, this is a family that does not particularly believe in any form of life after death and so they must also deal with what is happening in relation to their beliefs. After finally coming to terms with this conundrum they begin to seek help and find it in the form of famous Parapsychologist Hans Holzer. Dr. Holzer is very familiar to anyone who is partial to this type of book and I have several of his books in my own library. In many ways this is like one of Dr. Holzer's books except with a much more detailed description of the haunting before Holzer arrives on the scene. This is a ghost story that portrays in detail the haunting much more so than the investigation. I like it!

This is a book that you will read very quickly because the author does a very nice job of making you wonder what is going to happen next. She makes the reader feel as if they know this family personally so that you will want to find out how things turn out. It does occasionally show through that this is the author's first book but not often and the story flows very smoothly. Mrs. Mercado does have a tendency to engage in a little too much psycho-babble which slows the book down a little in places but I can easily live with this in order to get this kind of first person account of a haunting. It is often said that the Devil is in the details and there are plenty of details here. I like that also.

I know the author doesn't want to have another first person account to write about but maybe she will find herself drawn to write about other people's experiences. I think that there is much potential here.

"Grave's End" is a terrific ghost story along the lines of "The Amityville Horror". The main difference is that the author doesn't seem to be trying to sell the reader a sack of banana oil. I must say I got quite a few shivers while reading this book. The author creates a sense of verisimilitude and genuine warmth about her family and close friends, all of whom slowly begin to experience very creepy and occasionally downright terrifying events in a century old house in Brooklyn. There is a sympathetic cast of characters, the central character being the protagonist's teenaged daughter who claims to see strange unearthy things in the house. At first she is not believed. That is, until all hell breaks loose.
What I like is that there is a satisfying resolution to the story yet there are still questions about whether or not the "experts" who examine the house really know what they are doing. Elaine Mercado simply describes her family's experiences during thirteen years of living in a supposedly haunted house without padding the book with a lot of spiritual hokum. The book moves very fast- I read it in one night.
Some books in this genre read as though the author has simply seen too many horror movies. "Grave's End" reads like a genuine journey into the realm of the supernatural. It somewhat reminded me of the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" in that the protagonist expressed no interest or desire to have these kinds of supernatural experiences until they started to happen.
A great book; the best of the "true ghost story" books I have read in twenty years. I can't wait to see the movie.

Whew! What I can say about a book I bought yesterday and finished last night at 2 in the morning, gripped in my bed? Literally. I know it's always cliche to hear "I read it in bed and it scared me!" etc., and that never happens to me - it takes a lot to truly terrify me. And this book is the first thing in a long while to make tears roll down my cheeks out of horror as I read. So many little things that happened in the house escalated to truly horrifying things, such as a voice calling out one of the daughter's names then laughing "maniacally" from behind the door. A friend seeing a tiny woman in a wedding dress huddled under the stairwell. A clip hurled at one of the daughters, then pulled back, then hurled again - in midair! These are a few of hundreds of events that took place at the house through the thirteen years of the haunting. Reading this book is so pleasurable for someone such as me who is so into reading about ghosts and hauntings, and as I read I became so emotionally invested and involved that whenever something was happening goosebumps broke out all over me and as I read, anxiously waiting to hear what happened to someone as they screamed and raced down the stairs shaking, I found I was either shaking or had tears in my eyes, or both, and that NEVER happens in all my reading experiences. So because of all this, I urge, urge anyone who is intereted in this subject to please buy this book. It is so powerful and moving, and effected me like nothing else has in a long while!

When Elaine Mercado and her first husband bought their home in Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1982, they had no idea that they and their two young daughters were embarking on a thirteen-year nightmare. Within a few days of moving in, Elaine and her older daughter began to experience the sensation of being watched. Then came scratching noises and weird smells, followed by voices whispering, maniacal laughter, shadowy figures scurrying along baseboards, and small balls of light bouncing along the ceilings. From the beginning of the haunting, "suffocating dreams" were experienced by everyone except the younger daughter. These eventually accelerated to physical aggression directed at Elaine and both the girls. This book is the true story of how one family tried to cope with living in a haunted house. It also describes how, with the help of parapsychologist Dr. Hans Holzer and medium Marisa Anderson, the family discovered the tragic and heartbreaking secrets buried in the house at Grave's End. This is the best true ghost story book I've ever read. After you reading this one, you won't be able to turn-off the lights of your bedroom when you go bed. In spite of Elaine doesn't be a professional writer ( she is a nurse ), she did a good work here. Whether you are the kind of person that like to be frightened or barely like to read a good ghost story, you should read this one. You won't be disappointed. Good reading !!!

....but dont' read it a night. I was floored on how good this books is. When I heard it was a real life haunting, I had to get it, and I'm sure as hell glad I did.

This is the story of Elaine Mercado and her experiences in her haunted house, and how it efected her family.

I couldn't read this book at night b/c it was so scary. I have to give Elaine a lot of credit, I'd have been out of that house so fast...

Here are some of the things that Elaine and her family had to face...

Voices...knocking....poundings....being pushed into her bad at night, and couldn't move.

If you love real life ghost stories, then you must get this book.

This is a well written book, a real page turner. Mercado does a great job of telling how her family suffers from feelings of "being watched" after buying a house inhabited by restless, active ghosts. After years of confusing experiences and
sleepless nights, Mercado does some research and has the house checked out by the experts. Hans Holzer and Marisa Anderson are called in. You will discover what happened in that location and why there is so much ghostly activity. Fascinating Brooklyn history. Couldn't put the book down.

Graves End is indeed a true ghost story told by a real person. Elaine Mercado is not a writer and this is not a descriptive, supernatural thriller...it is a factual story, written by a regular, everyday person. As such, it lacks polish and is somewhat dry reading, but it does provide a straight forward, non glamorized glimpse of what a haunting can do to one's life and one's family. Mercado takes the reader from pre-house buying all the way through to the cleansing of the house and beyond and gives us a detailed account of both the haunting (and all it's many phenomenon) as well as an open and honest account of her and her families life (the good, the bad, and the ugly). Graves End may not appeal to every lover of ghost stories because it is as much about Mercado's life as it is about a haunting...perhaps more so.

In the end, the reader is left with a vivid picture of THIS haunting, a bit of insight into the gambit of emotions and reactions that it brought to Mercado, her family, and others who visited the house during this 15 year ordeal...and yes ordeal is the word for it in this case as it was not welcome by Mercado herself, in fact if anything is stressed in this story, it is the fear that she felt. She never grew used to or become comfortable with the haunting and given the level of fear described in the book, one boggles that it took her 13...yes, that's right 13 years to DO anything, to be able to admit to others that the haunting was making them so miserable and the living situation so untenable that she finally asks her brother to help her...and it takes him MONTHS to find someone.

The entire last 1/3 of the book really begs the question of why she never went back to the parapsychology teacher who (early on) wanted to do interviews and a full investigation...why did he ask her brother and never once suggest the teacher or go back to ask his assistance. That bit really frustrated me...all the going on and on about how much trouble it is to find someone reputable...when she had someone very early on who would have helped and whom she could have gone back to. Once the brother finds some the story wraps up very quickly, all tied up neatly with a happily ever after ending, even.

Overall, it's a dry read that is as much about Mercado...her reactions and those of her family as it is about a haunting. Probably not a book for all fans of ghost stories (fictional or factual), I give it four stars because I just didn't get why it took 13 years to reach the point of doing something given the level of discomfort and fear that this caused for Mercado, for the almost constant comments about how unsupportive and condescending her ex was for about ˝ of the book, and the bit about not going back to her former instructor (whether it was sooner or later), it just struck me as making things more difficult than necessary when she finally did decide to get help.

Although this has all the classic (yawn) ghost story elements, it's so well-written that you find yourself fully drawn into the story. Although short at 174, it does tend to drag toward the end and no one ever seems too frightened -- more annoyed I guess. But it's a well told story and I certainly kept turning the pages!

What an amazing book. Elaine Mercado takes you on her journey of disbelief and finding "logical reasons" for the things that were happening in her house. I, myself, shared her skepticism at first and like her I was forced to face the ultimately indisputable fact that her place was haunted. Her husband proves to be the ultimate example of how we will cling to what we believe to be reality so desperately that when the "impossible" happens we just ignore it. Read the book and you'll know what I mean. This is the only true haunting story so far that has scared the daylights out of me. The journey of Elaine Mercado and her family is terrifying but also enlightening and in the end the truth of what was behind what was happening makes great sense thanks to the logical Hans Holtzer. I bought another copy just so I could lend it to more people. I recommend this book highly.

Grave's End is an amazing history of the experiences of a family living in a haunted house in Brooklyn. It was mentioned in an encyclopedic work by Hans Holzer, and I decided to follow it up out of curiosity.

Ms Mercado, if her vita is to be believed, is a well educated individual who works in a very demanding field-ER nursing at a trauma center-which expects practical, level headedness in emergencies. I would therefore expect her to be observant, calm in intense situations, and critical enough not to jump to conclusions without proper reflection. Her discussion of the events that occurred over a 12 year period and affected her family in major ways, is thorough and open.

I found her efforts to understand the phenomenon, even to the point of taking a class on the subject, impressive. The number of people who could corroborate these experiences was also impressive. It would be interesting to have a book by one of these individuals.

I would love to write fictional ghost stories myself, and it was interesting to dissect this tale for points that made it both believable and scary, ie) the characters are real, they invite sympathy and support, the house has an interesting character and history, there are specific places that are haunted and others that are "safe," there is a stop-start character to the phenomenon--ala Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds--there is a mystery to be solved, experts to be consulted, a resolution to the mystery and to the haunting, and a happily ever after ending. I liked it.