Interesting, informative, and sometimes insulting.

I am somewhat torn about this book. There were some things to love about it and some things to hate as well.
Being someone who is intrigued by the spiritual and historical and having read/enjoyed some of Leanna’s fiction work, the premise and authors of this book intrigued me and led me to want to read it.

Quite a number of the ghost tales were known to me—in fact, one of them was very well known as I spent a semester at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama in high school in a program called Step Ahead where incoming high school seniors could take two classes (for credit) in the summer. I was pleased that one of the first tales told in this book was about the red lady from there. That summer I lived on campus, we used to walk down to the dorm (Pratt Hall) where the poor girl supposedly died and talk about how tragic that was. A few times, it seemed there was a face at one of the windows on the top floor. Perhaps a flight of fancy since we were told the room had been boarded up. Nevertheless, it was nice to see the story in this book.

Clearly, the authors did a wonderful job fully researching the various stories they chose to share. The way the tales were sorted into categories made sense and the organization was well done. The book had a nice flow to it and a good variety of stories.

Some of the prose was a bit too woke and strident for me. There were also some places that it seemed as if the authors were lecturing or looking down on the reader. It was odd to me for them to basically attempt to shame the very demographic of people who would be attracted to reading the subject matter of this book. It was also strange since one of the authors owns a ghost tour company and the other one leads ghost tours. If you make your living from the industry, how can you legitimately look down on your customers? Seems a bit cynical to me. I almost stopped reading a couple of times because of this, but eventually picked it up again as the actual ghost stories and histories of the places were intriguing.

Overall, I enjoyed this one (except the parts where I felt insulted). I recommend the book for the stories and thorough historical research. Just skim over the parts where the writers’ judgment of the reader is problematic. I’m giving this one 3.5 stars for the historical detail and quality of the tales.

I received a copy of the book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. September 27, 2022 release date.

I have long had a quiet interest in things ghostly and haunting for a very good reason. I have had experiences with spirits and had hoped these authors would bring new information to my attention. There is good information here, but it is rather meager regarding personal experiences of either of these two authors. As someone familiar with the subject I would have welcomed more individual experiences. The segments where one or the other author was relating personally experienced activity at a specific location was more engaging for me instead of being just a recitation of facts (or fiction as some stories represent). If you have done any exploration into the phenomenon of witches, ghosts, haunts or spirits, you will have seen how women were so often victims of society and made scapegoats because they didn't have anyone to stand up for them and defend the charges against them. Society tends to come down harshly on someone who is different and Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes have done an excellent job of illustrating how this has happened to women over and over through time. What they have also shown is how some women managed to overcome their position in society to find a place to survive and even thrive in a world that makes most people just a little bit nervous.

If this is your first step in exploring the world of the paranormal, you will certainly find an abundance of information to help you find your way through the subject. This book can certainly point you in the direction you need to go in order to focus on one type of hauntings. I couldn't help but smile while reading the chapter devoted to the hauntings in Savannah, Georgia. Those folks are certainly willing to do (or say?) whatever it takes to keep the ghost tours going strong in their city. Who would have believed that ghosts could foster an entire tourism category in the life of a city.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for an e-galley of this book.

I received an arc of this book and sadly dfn halfway through. While the premise of the book is promising I found it was not what I expected. There was a lot of this will be explained later in the book or references to other chapters so it didn't flow well. I expected more ghost stories where instead there were just small albeit interesting stories added in with mostly explanations that went with each chapter.
Now if you are looking for a history of women in history especially when it comes to injustices in women's rights you will probably really enjoy this book. It just wasn't a good match for me.

Authors and ghost tour guides Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes tell the stories of America’s female ghosts, discussing how they fall in the landscape of gender and time.

I enjoy a good ghost story, which was why I requested this book on NetGalley. However, what I learned was far beyond the scope of merely spooky tales, and I really enjoyed this. The authors relate the stories of the ghosts with particular emphasis on the women’s place in space and time, expanding the way I looked at them.

Yet at the same time, the stories managed to be humorous and heart-rending and spooky. I especially liked the story in the chapter “An Unreliable Narrator,” which tells the story of a certain strange house in New York City.

However, I did think the authors sometimes wrote with sweeping generalizations about both ghosts and gender, and the tone of the writing became a little dramatic at times. I also wished that the authors would have included more stories about women from marginalized backgrounds – while they discussed the paucity of stories about such ghosts, I thought it would have been interesting if they could have included more of the stories they did find.

Overall, a fascinating read for those who believe in ghosts as well as those in search of good historical yarns.

A unique collection of crime stories, some true, some not, that all involved women at the core of the crime. Heiber and James put together a broad sample of these crimes and demostrated how the crimes affected the history and the local lore. A truly interesting and entertaining read.

I received an ARC of, A Haunted History of Invisible Women, by Leanna Renee Hieber: Andrea Janes. Wow women have been through a lot in history, no wonder some have become ghosts. From the witch trials in Salem Massachusetts, to women who have been wronged, or have done bad things, a lot of them are in this book.

I have loved ghost stories since the first time my Uncle Tommy sat us down around the first and told us stories when we were camping. As I grew older I would take ghost tours wherever I went since you learn a little bit of history about the area as well. But the most interesting of all are books that tell you more about the ghost during their life than just the story of their haunting.

THIS book right here hits all the marks. We’ve all know that women have struggled and been oppressed by men throughout history, and this book offers a view into some of the most famous females ghosts we have read about. It’s a much different view than we’ve heard before and well worth the read! Break out the spiced cider, cozy up in front of a first and read on into the night, if you dare!

An astute, sharp overview of the women behind some of America's most infamous female ghosts. Debunking the stereotypes and tropes that surround the likes of Lizzie Borden and New Oreleans ' Marie Laveau. An empathetic tale of spurned lovers, grieving widows and the tragic women of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.

Extremely entertaining and riveting book

A must for feminists and those who are fans of the true natures of women.

I am so glad I was given the opportunity to read an advanced copy!! The stories were excellent!! I took my time with this read in hopes to absorb all the knowledge in these pages. Highly recommend

With insight and empathy, authors Hieber and Janes recover and honor the real women behind legendary U.S. ghost stories (categorized as Maidens, Witches, Mothers and Wives, Jezebels, Madwomen, Spinsters and Widows, and Frauds). Theirs is not a comprehensive, encyclopedic, scholarly undertaking, but it's not intended to be. Hieber and Janes choose illustrative examples (many from their home base of New York, some from personal experiences) to unfold their larger argument about women's roles and voices in the United States. This is an entertaining, accessible, and at times very moving book -- and, best of all, it's a work that invites the reader to follow up on footnotes and sources in the bibliography, to do more investigating and pondering, and to interrogate the familiar tales we repeat and rethink their meanings. Both Hieber and Janes are terrific storytellers, and their different approaches to the material is one of the book's many strengths.

As someone that loves a good ghost story this books gave me so much more. If you are simply expecting some retelling of ghost stories from lore/legend and witnesses this is not what you are getting. If you thought that don’t worry so did I at first. You are getting so much more with an in-depth look into not only the stories but the history and psychological impact of ghostly women. How different classes, stereotypes, and even races are treated differently in these ghosts stories. As well the exploitation of woman in these stories from a historical or even just purely fabrication for monetary gain. If you are one to enjoy more of an essay style of book on this subject then this one is for you. I can even say for once I went through the notes at the end just to get a few more interesting stats, tidbits, and facts from the mentioned stories and historical events mentioned. If there are a college course on this subject that used this a a reference book then I would have gladly read it. While it might not be everyone’s cup of tea it was interesting to me as a Canadian having heard about a lot of these ghosts, spirits, and witches. It gave some life to these hauntings in most cases were once actual people.

I loved this dive into female ghosts. I'm not saying I believe it, but I did enjoy reading the stories.

History, feminism and ghost stories all bound together in one book. I found the ghost stories interesting and appreciated the history and background on the subjects the authors provided. I loved how the authors push the reader to think more deeply about the oppressive nature of many popular paranormal figures and tales.
This book was clearly thoroughly researched and well written. I feel like it would be a good choice for academic courses, especially within women's studies.
While I was mostly very engaged in the reading, it sometimes got a bit unnecessarily wordy.

I don't really know what i was expecting when i requested this ARC, maybe some sort of horror book, some ghost stories, or maybe ghost localizations, this book was much further than what I was expecting, instead of a regular horror story, I got the story how the said ghost come to be, the story of the women that later became the ghost of legends, yes, we as human we dwell a lot in the past, and how things happened means a lot to us, I guess that’s the reason why in most ghost tours, like the writer of the book said, 90% of said tours are women, we want to connect to these lost souls..

This is the kind of book that will make you sad, and at the same time make you read more, I guess we like Mulder, we just want to believe and know more, this is a great read, you go from hotels to colleges, passing by witches, and you know what?, you have a name to these otherwise unknown ghosts, you have a backstory, what makes the reader so much closer to the story, you also get to know how these ghosts make their presence know in modern times, it is a great read, and will make you busy until the last page.

Thank you NetGalley for the free ARC and this is my honest opinion.

An interesting read that demonstrates ample research and thought as well as the personal investment of the authors' time and energy. It certainly contains a lot of things I was not familiar with.

But I have to admit that I struggled with the book at times. I wasn't sure whether the authors wanted to make a serious socio/political statement and critique society or discuss a topic that can be fun as well as historic - so they weren't really consistent on either. Let's be honest: I picked up this book for the change of pace and hoped to be entertained. That happened at times. But from the very beginning, with a discussion about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire that was largely a diatribe about the treatement of women workers, there were sections much more focused on "invisible" than on "haunted." That is not necessarily bad, but not what I was looking for in this book, either.

Absorbing, Riveting…
Looking into the beyond - notorious women who were, perhaps, more famous after death than whilst in the land of the living. The tales behind America’s most famous ghosts. A unique insight into the lives and history behind the myths. A melange of characters, larger than life and certainly more famous after it. It’s a riveting and absorbing collection of tales, told with enthusiasm, mirth and appropriate menace and yet gives the reader a real feeling of the humanity of this collection of women, often dispelling false narratives and perhaps providing the real truth as to why these tales are so haunting.

When I saw this book available on NetGalley, I eagerly sent a request in. I love ghosts and I love history, this seemed like a perfect match of my interests.

The book is divided into six themes, with an introduction and three essays about female ghosts both famous and unknown. I liked that there were also pictures interspersed throughout, and I wish that a couple more made it into the arc instead of just the captions, but still I'm excited to see what the photos would be in the final copy.

Admittedly, there were some essays that felt a tad overdramatic in the tone and the way that it's written. I feel like it significantly improved as I coursed through the book though — most of my favorites were in the middle and the last parts. An Unreliable Narrator honestly spooked me.

I also liked how this book didn't just talk about the ghosts and the hauntings, but opened up conversation on how the lives of often very real women were commodified in the after life and how some ghost tours barely talk about how awful some of the lives of these women were back then, instead just sensationalizing them. I especially liked the essay about the Sorrel Weed House concerning this topic.

Overall, an informative and thought-provoking book. If you're a lover of both the paranormal and history, I'd definitely recommend this book as something you'd enjoy.

A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America's Ghosts by Leanna Renee Hieber; Andrea Janes is an excellent nonfiction that takes us into the vast realm of ghost stories and the history that surrounds them.

This is such a unique book. Part history, part paranormal, part historical biography, it gives the reader many examples of ghost stories involve famous and non famous women in the past and the historical events that surround each woman.

I really enjoyed reading more about these women and also the basis for the paranormal stories that developed from their earthly existence. Excellent.

5/5 stars

Thank you NG and Citadel/Kensington Books for this wonderful arc and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon, Instagram, and B&N accounts upon publication on 9/27/22.

I love a ghost story in these go stories all have a historical bases with was amazing. I found this book to be extremely entertaining an interesting an absolutely would read it again.

As history has shown, women don’t often get the credit they deserve in life. What about in the afterlife then? This fascinating book explores some of history’s most well known female killers, witches, shameless strumpets, and murder victims. The women in this book were afforded much more attention after death than they ever got in life, a point the authors drive home. All the more important as today, in the United States, women are becoming more and more marginalized. Don’t be afraid of the “ghosts” in this book, be afraid of what they have come to represent. Compelling reading