Customer Reviews

Haunted Scotland

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I must admit that I bought this book to help me plan a trip to Scotland. While there I hope to stop by some of the more haunted spots and maybe take a ghost tour or two. This book is very full of information but is of little use as a tourist guide. Adams has done a lot of research and his style is very easy to read but he jumps around too much. The few haunts he devotes any space to at all are places the average tourist won't make it to. Holyroodhouse which is a prime tourist spot is mentioned in one sentence and then only to say it is, "reputedly haunted".

The reader will find this book is almost like a sandwich. The first chapter and the last two chapters are by far the best in the book. Reading the first chapter in bed one night I actually got a little spooked. That is the test of a good ghost book. The rest of the book however keeps the reader so busy trying to figure out which haunting Adams is talking about that the spooky nature of the stories can't sink in. The problem is that the reader is hit with rapid fire stories with little or no depth. One paragraph can be about a haunt in the highlands and the next paragraph may be set in the borders with no real effort to mark the change in area or story for that matter.

This book would have been so much better if Adams had attempted far less stories and had given some depth to the ones he used. Still, it might serve a a good place to start if one is interested in Adams' subject. Kind of like a brief survey course.

A wonderful book, but it can be purchased at www.alberene.com for $15.95, and is worth the cost. However, I don't feel it is worth the $117.95 on the Amazon site.