A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America's Ghosts is everything you could want from a book.

Co-authors Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes know what they're talking about. They spend their nights as guides for the ghost tour company Boroughs of the Dead in New York City. Ghosts are their area of expertise.

In this book, Hieber and Janes present us with multiple tales, both long and short, of female ghosts. While some of the tales themselves may be purely fiction, within these pages they are presented in a purely factual and critical way. Reports are given, but skeptical questions are asked. This is Haunting Time for the Discerning Skeptic.

The hauntings are broken up into the following sections based on general similarities between the supposed ghosts:

Death and the Maiden,
Witches,
Mothers and Wives,
Bad Girls, Jezebels, and Killer Women,
"Madwomen",
Spinsters and Widows,
Frauds, Fakes, and Mythmaking.

But the real beauty of this book is that its authors do a deep dive into examining the reasons for these stories, from an entirely feminist perspective. They look at the societal and cultural climate during which each story sprang to life, and discuss how that climate promoted each particular type of haunting.

Both a fascinating repository of ghostly lore and a philosophical and psychological essay on the role of women - alive and dead - throughout history, I found this book both informative and thought-provoking.

If you're looking simply for a book on true hauntings and nothing more, I'll stop you here. This book isn't that. Yes, it has ghost stories some that could be true (such as that word applies to haunted places and ghosts) and others are most likely urban legends or made up out of whole cloth to cash in on the ghost tourism market. Instead this book looks at those stories through two lenses, one of historical context and the other a feminist context and this is what sets it apart.

At the end of the day, there a countless stories of women in white, cry baby bridges and women who have either lost a baby or killed it themselves, lost a love or destroyed it. They make up the bulk of the stories told in true haunting books and on ghost tours. I should know. I've been on so many across the world and read even further aboard than I've been able to travel. This is a fascinating look at why these stories impact us, why do women have a voice only after death in so many cases and the tricky line we toe using women's pain (and people of color or truly anyone's pain) as we commercialize the afterlife.

It's broken into different ghostly tropes, the mother, the fallen woman etc and looks at a few specific cases across the country, looking at what was happening with those women at that time and how/why these women were immortalized after death.

It was well worth the read. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC

Princess Fuzzypants here: Who does not love a good ghost story? They are the grist for so many popular books and movies. The true story, if there even is one, often get embellished and changed in the various tellings. When commerce is part of the equation, the temptation to make it more “sexy” often wins out over the facts. This book does an admirable job trying to sort through the confusion to come up with as close to the real things as is ever possible. It does something else. It looks at the stories as a reflection of how women were perceived and perceived themselves in a male dominated society. It certainly casts a light I had not considered before. Some of the arguments were quite profound. It certainly will influence how I look at ghost tales in the future.

Believer or skeptic or perhaps skeptic believer, you will be drawn into the stories of women who often suffered in life only to suffer in death- frequently at the hands of those who would tell their cautionary tales. This was an interesting and informative book on both the hauntings and the service industry that has grown up around them. Four purrs and two paws up.

I enjoyed this book, although I was unfamiliar with many of the tales as it’s an American book that being said it was very interesting spooky as you would expect but also a brilliant way of looking and re evaluating women and how they are perceived, both in life and death. A very good read.

A Haunted History of Invisible Women is a non-fiction book about female ghosts in the US and what they can tell us about society, history, and culture. I love books that look at the intersectionality of myth and folklore and thought this would be an informative read for spooky season.

I had a good time with this book! The authors have been active in giving ghost tours so there was a bit more of a "ghosts are real" lean than I was expecting in non-fiction. However, I felt this added to the spooky ambiance. I liked learning about the different ghosts, some I was previously familiar with and some I was not. I like the diversity in stories and the analysis about race, gender, and class in ghost stories.

Overall, this was a great spooky non-fiction book and I'm glad I read it! Would recommend to anyone who finds the title interesting. 3.85 stars rounded up to 4 from me. Thank you to Kensington Books and NetGalley for the electronic advanced reader's copy of this book!

This was such a fun book I loved every part of it. It gives an in-depth knowledge of the ghosts stories and the real people they are based off of.

LOVE THIS BOOK!! I don't usually annotate books, but this one had such amazing historical facts that I kept going 'whoa!" and highlighting.

I loved the discourse and truth behind these stories. As a paranormal fan, some of these stories I knew and some I didn't, but looking at them through a female gaze and really digging into the truth of these women's stories is amazing. Leanna and Andrea did such a wonderful job of making these women more than just the stories that follow them and bring who they really are to the forefront.

Just wonderful

📖📖📖📖📖

Publish Date: September 227, 2022

I love this book! I’m a history nerd and so the combination of getting to hear the history of a place as well as the reported spirits that are hanging out was awesome! It’s like @atwwdpodcast but both on the same place! I highly recommend this book!

#invisiblewoman #femalehistorymaker #leannareneehieber #andreajanes #kensingtonbooks #ghosts #history

A Haunted History of Invisible Women
by Leanna Renee Hieber + Andrea Janes
Kensington Books/CItadel
September 2022
***** ( 5 stars) everything a book should be!

A unique and fascinating look at the history of American women. Exploring the history of female-centered ghosts and their stories; the hauntings and the spirits many times mirroring the stereotypes, tropes and prejudices from the period on hisory they lived. The fear of powerful women who acted outside societal roles, who dared to be individuals was an attempt to make the female voice-less, invisible.......as if we were merely spirits, or ghosts. The labels many times were meant to be demeaning and insulting and are as ghosts within us. Shattering these preconceptions and identities lies within the spirit of us all.

The stories of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911 in NYC, the Legendary Pink Palace in Florida, The Winchester House, Sorrel Weed House
and so many others shared here, from across the USA, are eerie. The ghosts and the history go hand in hand, both terrifying, haunting and assumed.
The stories of Eugene O'Neil's mother, of Delphine LaLaurie, Mary Surratt and Lizzy Bordon, and my favorite, the story of Joan Rivers hauntings are fun to read and the historical factors really bring new life to these ghosts and their hauntings.

Leanna Renee Hieber is an actress, best-selling author, playwright and a tour guide for NYC's Boroughs of The Dead ghost tour, and Andrea Janes has always loved the history of NYC and ghosts.

I absolutely enjoyed every page. The stories, the tone of the authors, and the distinctive take on the ghosts make this a remarkable
as well as creepy read that I will be recommending to everyone. It has inspired me to read and think more about these women, and their place in our history. I will look for more from Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes. Fantastic
#netgalley #AHauntedHistoryofInvisibleWomen
Thanks to netgalley, and Kensington Books for sending this e-book for review.

As a lover of history, I enjoyed this book a great deal. I have always been fascinated with ghost stories and haunted places but this book put these things into another perspective. As the title suggests, women have often been invisible to the world around them. I am thankful for people who tell their stories. I hope we never stop telling these stories.

I really enjoyed reading this for spooky season! It provided not only great ghost stories, but also insight into feminism and history.

My rating: 1 of 5 stars, DNF.

Sigh. Another book that I thought would be interesting because I love ghost stories and history and a well told tale. Plus, spooky season is here, so yay!

But this book was anything but well told. It was dry, boring and highly judgemental. It felt like the driest of college course lectures on Women's Studies. Apparently the authors give ghost tours. Those must be just a ton of fun! Or not.

Did not finish.

*Also absolutely stunned that Amazon has limited who can review this book to Verified Purchases saying, "Amazon has noticed unusual reviewing activity on this product. Due to this activity, we have limited this product to verified purchase reviews." Apparently multiple poor reviews are unusual? So yeah, no Amazon review for this one.*

Okay, let’s take a minute to talk about how great this book was. This was a collection of some really unbeknownst-to-me ghost stories that made my stomach turn right alongside some fan favorites (As always, major points for including my girl KATE!) that never cease to amaze. I think this collection was absolutely fantastic and I loved the commentary as well. Ghosts and ghost lore being a predominantly femme game is not a surprise, but sad nonetheless. I can’t recommend this book enough. This is a great one for your introduction to ghostie and supernatural readings. And as the blurb on the cover says, I don’t believe this book needs to just be read. It needs to be taught!

I’m secret lover of ghost stories so I was very excited to pick up this book. The intersection of ghost stories and feminism was brand new to me and I really enjoyed that outlook. The stories themselves were, for the most part, enthralling. I enjoyed the section on New Orleans the best because the content was raw and requires the reader to face many uncomfortable things. It made me think over ghost tours I’ve taken in the past (Williamsburg VA, Roswell GA, Gettysburg PA to name a few) and consider how the stories were told. Should I ever take a ghost tour again, I will have a lot to consider. The way ghost stories reflect the times in which they were told is fascinating to me, but that leads me to one of the drawbacks I think the book had.

The book is organized by subject matter (ie: witches, mothers, etc) and while that is certainly a compelling way to organize the material, I can’t help but wonder if a thorough examination of ghost stories chronologically would yield a stronger thesis. In order to do that, one would have to pick a region and study hundreds if not thousands of tales and use the stories to illustrate a point. I think the arguments made in the current formation lacked because the stories felt very picked and chosen to support the thesis. That’s where the book loses points for me the most.

Other minor points were deducted for stories that are too well known. Lizzie Borden? Been there, done that a dozen times. The Winchester Mystery House? The story corrected several misassumptions people have about the house, which I found useful, but again, it’s an over done story.

If the authors write a sequel I will definitely read it, if just for the stories themselves.

I was drawn to this book by the provided blurb. It had some quite dry passages but overall was an interesting historical account.
I voluntarily reviewed an advance reader copy of this book.

Telling a ghost story well is difficult. Writing a book examining ghost stories for their "truth" is even more difficult, and yet Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes both tackle the difficult subject of ghosts with a critical eye while still maintaining respect for the tradition of ghost stories told all over the United States.

What sets A Haunted History of Invisible Women apart from every other book about ghosts I've read is that Hieber and Janes take their job seriously, critically, and passionately not just because they want to craft the best book they can, but also because they consider it their duty to tell the story right and in the right way. Their book is as much about the ethics of ghost storytelling as it is about delivering the stories of America's haunted women. With each chapter, they offer ghost stories examined with real critical thought, presenting the stories with all their many conflicting facts, their dialectical complexities, their dramatic ironies, but without ever losing sight of their living, human realities.

This is a book that doesn't shy away from having real critical discussion not just about the stories themselves, but about our reason for reading, interpreting, or gathering ghost stories in the first place. In good allegorical fashion, Janes and Hieber seek to apply the lessons of these stories, whether they be folk traditions, oral histories, or just made-up commercial thrillers, to our everyday lives. These stories serve an important function in our lives, allowing us to confront the realities of the past with our current human condition. For Janes and Hieber, ghost stories are powerful examples of the ways our human systems frequently fail women, marginalizing them in life and only taking interest in them through their deaths. Their retelling of the stories some of America's most compelling ghostly women is thoughtful, empathetic, complex, and powerful, each carrying an emotional weight driven by their passion for the subject.

A Haunted History of Invisible Women isn't just the best book I've ever read on the topic of ghosts, it's also the most important examination of these stories I've ever encountered. Hieber and Janes model for us both the intellectual rigor we should put forth as we encounter ghost stories and also the empathy and passion we should employ when learning about our folk traditions or stories of the marginalized from our past.

This book should be required reading for anyone invested in the topic of ghost stories and folk histories, a powerful reminder of the reason it's so important to get the story right.

"A Haunted History of Invisible Women” provides detailed accounts of a few of the most haunted places in America. Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes provides background and myths of women that have become legendary after death. The amount of research they have done is evident but often left me wanting more information about what led up to it to the demise and details of sightings. Parts were difficult to get through because I wasn’t sure if they were providing history or more on the mistreatment of women. Thank you NetGalley and Kensington Books, Citadel for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

From residual hauntings to materialized spectres, Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes are your personal guides to the history of female American ghosts. Famous for their name or their location, these women left behind indelible marks, which continue to capture readers’ fascination time and time again

As Janes and Hieber take turns sharing their insight, they remain careful and reverent to shedding the patriarchal lens of the lore versus history of each woman. They uncover the sometimes overlooked treatment of and injustices toward each of their subjects. Readers will see the play on “invisible” as they flip through each story

Those familiar with Hieber’s prior works will be thrilled (and chilled) as she continues to let you in on her spectral secrets. If you have not discovered her novels yet, this is the perfect opportunity to do so. Anyone searching for snapshots of the supernatural will not be disappointed by this accessible go-to. It is a thoughtful, seasonal treat

Big thanks to the publisher @penguinrandomhouse (Citadel Books) for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This nonfiction book wasn't what I was expecting; it was better. The authors investigate well-known ghost stories more deeply than you might find in your average book of hauntings. This book seeks to do more than simply scare the reader. Instead, the authors reveal the social and psychological aspects of ghost stories, and more specifically what is revealed in the ways we discuss ghostly women. This is a lofty goal, but it was handled well and I was impressed by the authors' breadth of knowledge on this topic. While I was familiar with most of the stories, they were presented in a way that challenged my understanding. I particularly enjoyed how the book was organized into tropes, using the commonalities between the stories as a critical lens.

I found this book super interesting I love real true ghost haunting stories and what I loved most about this book was that it gave alot of history behind the haunting and the women portrayed I even found out alot of things I didn't even know before!!!! Fun and enjoyable book!

Much thanks to #netgalley and #KensingtonBooks for selecting me to read and review this ARC
All thoughts and opinions are my own