Suspending personal feelings of ghosts and other haunted feelings, this is a bit of an academic look at the intersection of women's rights and visibility in history and how that role has changed (or not) since. A little heavy handed and with cherry picked examples at times but it was an interesting read from a historical perspective.

#netgalley #ahauntedhistoryofinvisiblewomen

This book explores famous ghost stories from around the USA featuring female ghosts and why these stories exist. The ghost stories themselves aren't to focus of the book. This book explores why we tell the stories.

If you're looking for frightening tales of ghosts you're in the wrong place. Unless you're terrified by how women have historically been treated. This is told in a academic framing so its honestly pretty boring, but educational.

Recommended for those people who are into the idea of ghosts, history, and general learning but don't want to be scared.

I really like the premise of the book - the history behind female ghosts. Because this is a collection of different tales, there were those that really interested me, and others that just didn't.

Overall the book didn't feel cohesive - what was the overall goal? Paranormal occurrences and encounters? A look at society and women throughout history? A spotlight on women who made history? I couldn't quite grasp the overall theme across the book.

The audiobook format itself was a little confusing for me - I had trouble figuring out if some of the experiences were the author's own experience, or if they were strictly researching and reporting from another source.

This title is quite a loaded one, isn't it? But, it sets the tone for this haunting compilation.

Going into spooky season, I'm always looking for books to get me in the haunting mood, usually light-hearted witchy tales, thrillers or other paranormal fantasy or some such. I was browsing Netgalley and saw this cover and title and it intrigued me. Real life ghost stories?! Sign me up!

It didn't take long for me to get through this book, I listened compulsively, earbuds in at every possible opportunity, followed by rounds of "did you know..." with my husband.

What I loved most about this book wasn't just that I was listening to ghost stories, though they were entertaining enough. I loved that the authors took the time to look into the verifiable facts (or sometimes the lack thereof) surrounding these stories to get to the heart of why they so captured people's fascination. Ultimately, the authors simply present the reader with what they're able to find out and let the reader make the decision what to believe (or not).

This book seeks to shine a light on women who history would eschew as undesirable or "other" for various reason and lets their story be told with plausible insights into what was really going on. The stories in this book share stories of love, loss, murder, and suicide by women who were mothers (good and bad), spinsters, "mad" women (crazy or institutionalized because they were inconvenient), prostitutes, widows, and more. There are women who had no agency over their life when they breathed, but who found it in death, women who had reputations (good or bad) preceding their deaths that only flourished more afterwards, women from high positions and low...just, women.

The authors clearly did their research and are very knowledgeable about that which they speak and present these women's stories in a thought-provoking, insightful, and sometimes eerie way. Whether you believe in ghosts or the paranormal or not, this book makes for a great spooky read for this October.

This was so much more than a paranormal ghost tale. The authors who are phenomenal storytellers also present very well-researched tales. I was not expecting such a deep dive into women's portrayal and role throughout US history when I requested this audiobook. Nonetheless, I appreciated it and would recommend this ghoulie read for Halloween.

A Haunted History of Invisible Women by Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes is a fantastic non-fiction biography-style book of ghost stories. This book focuses on some of the most well-known and best-loved female ghosts of history. There were some I recognized, and I learned something new even about the ones I had already heard of. This was a super interesting read and I loved listening to it on audiobook. Thank you to NetGalley for gifting me an ALC of this highly anticipated title!

I am so excited for this book! It's the perfect historical non-fiction option for spooky season! I loved learning new facts about history throughout the story while also getting a bit of spook!

I could not at all get interested in this book. It just did not hold my attention at all. I dont know what I was expecting but I definitely didn't get it.

I totally believe in ghosts. I have seen a few in my life and no one is going to tell me different.

I enjoyed learning about ghost stories that I had only heard about peripherally prior to to reading this. The Winchester House ghost has always fascinated me. She is someone who had clout and money, but yet that didn’t prevent mental illness. I hope she found some solace in the afterlife and her house is still up to her standards.

I had no idea how socio-political ghost stories are. There is always something that can “get you” if you misbehave! Growing up Catholic, I can totally relate. We were all going to hell unless…

The narrator did an amazing job! I definitely recommend this book.

8/10

Thanks to NetGalley, Kensington Books, and Tantor Audio for this eerie ARC.

Sometimes it does me good to reflect on my interest in true crime, the paranormal and macabre and to ask myself: Am I seeking entertainment in the grief and pain of others, victims that can't defend themselves (anymore)? As harmless as urban myths and stories of hauntings seem at first - besides their effect of keeping sleep from me at night - one has to engage with the criticism by people outside of the "spoopy" side of the internet, perhaps, and to occasionally self-scrutinize.

A Haunted History offers a different perspective on a variety of tales of American hauntings, revealing both the meaning and the psychology behind some of the most famous lady ghosts from overseas. Misogyny is deeply rooted in modern society - and in lore. Isn't (posthumously) monetizing the experience of a notorious widow deeply immoral? Don't the assumptions we make about the alleged ghost of an enslaved woman abuse her twice over? Why do we have to fetishize sex workers even beyond death?

Questions like these are posed by the writers of this book, who are part of the ghost tourism "trade", but don't shy away from challenging themselves and their business. Some tales were perhaps a little too analytically divulged than others, but I did overall enjoy the level of detail brought to the page. I only hope that we will get to see a similar follow-up that enganges with international ghost stories from the feminist perspective!

I received a copy of this audiobook from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for the book.

The book is historical non-fiction, where the authors have collected some of the most memorable, interesting, and forgotten stories of women. The women's stories have turned into folklore, ghost stories, in some way or another, turned into spiritual and horrific tales. While the authors believe in ghosts, they don't claim any truth to this or the ghost stories they tell. Instead, they explain whatever facts and background stories they have collected and make some good reflections and considerations.

The book is split into sections, for example, Witches, Mothers, Widows, etc. And each section covers the theme with great examples and horrifying stories.
Common for all of the stories is that they're based on women and women who, in some way or another, have been misunderstood or misjudged.
It is fascinating to learn about some historical women and hear about their lives and the facts behind the ghost stories.
Many women are commonly known, or at least some version of their story. Some have been represented in horror movies, tv shows, or books, and it has been a pleasure to learn more about them!
The book is, without doubt, written from a feminist point of view, and the authors point out many of the cultural disadvantages there have been through time for women.

It is a book that brings out quite a lot of emotions. From the beginning till the end, I was shocked and horrified by the terrible destinies some of the women had. I smiled, I got angry, and I got so interested that I had to do my own research on some of them. It is a great book to widen your horizons, learn more about our history - and get to know some interesting women.
I must admit I didn't love the narrator. She spoke very slowly, and the sound was not great once I sped up the speed. I think I would have preferred a physical copy of this book, also because it is the type of book I would like to go back to and reread certain parts.
With that being said, I highly enjoyed the book.

This book is not what I expected, a scary bunch of ghost stories about women. It is so much better than that.

This book is instead a commentary on not only the real women (when possible) that these stories, folklore, and urban legends have been created about but also the tropes and reasons that are often employed by the storytellers who tell them.

You will come away from this with a wonderful knowledge of many invisible women, and how they were used and exploited in life and now are being used and exploited in death.

Small nitpick: This is one of the rare times that I felt this would be better experienced as a book than an audiobook. The narrator was fine, if not a little stiff, but I felt it would have been better with multiple narrators (at least two) to trade off when we got to new stories or new sections. It helps with the flow.

Although this is not for everyone, it was certainly for me. Fun for Halloween as well.

Thank you to Leanna Renee Hieber, Andrea Janes, Tantor Audio, and Netgalley for a copy of this audiobook.

I was looking for a new ghostly read (listen) for the spooky season and was also in the mood for something in the realm of non-fiction. What a thrill it was to come across this fantastic title! I have a good friend who leads ghost tours, so this felt like it would be right up my alley.

This feminist compilation of tales about female ghosts in the United States was both fascinating and empowering. These stories of "sorrowful widows, vengeful jezebels, innocent maidens, wronged lovers, former slaves, even the occasional axe-murderess" from different backgrounds, classes, and circumstances are masterfully woven to pique the curiosity of even the biggest skeptic, like me, who will no doubt find them nothing short of poignant and intriguing. I loved the mix of history and myth that make up the ghost lore that lives on for centuries. The writing was richly informative, and the narration was excellent! I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this audiobook; it was exactly what I needed to jump-start my paranormal reads!

I received an advance review copy of this audiobook for free from Tantor Audio and NetGalley, and I am leaving my honest review voluntarily as a courtesy.

A really interesting topic that was hard to get through due to the lack of any new information brought to the table. I enjoyed the premise and the concept but it felt a bit dry.

Let me begin by saying, what an amazing read for Spooky Season! Perfect for people who like me love to read about true crime and be spoked by ghost stories. But it’s especially for those that love to be challenged by new ways of thinking about these stories.

The authors reflect on the way women are portrayed in ghost stories – some familiar, others not quite –, and by doing so, they ask us to challenge our (mainstream) understanding of who these women were.

The audiobook was just fantastic, the narrator really helped me to get immersed in the book, and I have to admit that I got a bit spooked at times. Definitely what I wanted!

Thank you to @netgalley and @tantoraudio for providing me with an ALC in exchange for an honest review!

I thought this was an interesting read/listen and I did like the narrator’s – Linda Jones – voice. Perhaps it would have been nice to have the authors narrate their own work though? I don’t know.

The stories are about women from across the USA, both well-known ones such as Lizzie Borden and more “obscure” voices that been lost to history. I like true crime as well as folklore and this book was a mix between the two as many of these women have been woven into North American folklore long after their history ended.

All in all, a good reading experience. I wasn’t bored.

Written by 2 authors and ghost tour guides, this book collects stories of "sorrowful widows, vengeful jezebels, innocent maidens, wronged lovers, former slaves, even the occasional axe-murderess".

I adored that they chose to include all types of women and that they did not debate whether or not ghosts are real or the places mentioned are haunted, nor do they invalidate anyone's story or experience with those spirits and locations.

The authors analyze through a modern lens the lives, the sometimes horrible events those women went through, how their stories evolved with time, and the power of storytelling. Too often in ghost stories, the negatives are taken out of proportion or the events get twisted, ending up very far away from the truth, to better serve those doing the retelling. There was a phrase that stood out to me and it's the best example in this case. It was something like this: even in death, her personhood was taken away from her. However, that's not all there is. A lot of the women discussed got to reclaim their agency in death through these narratives, something that they didn't have in their lives. So not all of the tales are horrific, and not all the ghosts are portrayed as dangerous, and that's a very different approach to what we're used to seeing in movies, tv shows, books, and so on.

I learned a lot while reading this book, and what shocked me the most was that the youngest girl found guilty in the Salem witch trials was 4 years old - she was killed after being imprisoned, alone, for a few months. I remember this quote and think I will for a long time: "We remember the trials but don't really remember why they were important." I loved the conversation around this topic and how, by now, we should have learned what mass disinformation and paranoia can lead to.

Towards the end, the authors do share some personal experiences with haunted places, however, they don't try to make you change your beliefs, or suggest that those would be universal experiences for anyone who would be there.

I love this book deeply and I would highly recommend it to anyone even if you're not into ghost stories. I also think it's the perfect book to get into non-fiction if you haven't done that already.

I would love to read a similar book covering stories from all over the world, as this covered only the United States.

I thought this book was well done, but I found it to be more informational than scary. Despite the "horror" classification on Goodreads, I personally do not think that this book fits into that genre. The authors told the tales of female ghosts, but in the context of how women were / are societally perceived, and how this perception spawned such ghost stories. So, for me, it was more a book about the history of ghosts and the societal reasons why ghost stories are created, rather than a compilation of ghost stories. 

I hadn’t ever thought to much into how ghost stories came about. It was very interesting to get the authors’ take based upon the historical evidence.

As of the writing of this review this book has about a 3.8 average rating on Goodreads, with about 111 ratings overall. Honestly, this is surprising to me and seems a bit unfair. Most of the lower ratings are from people who say the book is to "feminist" for them, or rag on the authors for not collecting interviews from people who have seen these ghosts, or for not sharing their own personal ghost stories. But I don't think this was the point of the book. This book wasn't about the stories themselves per se, but how these ghost stories were formed and how said stories have shaped society in the retelling. It is an interesting and unique perspective to these ghost stories, one which I had never read before.

Therefore, I would recommend this book, especially for those people who like history and ghosts.

The book is written by two women who are writers and tour guides. It has a nice balance of ghost lore, storytelling, and non-academic analysis. Some of which was quite generalized. Having taught a course on ghost lore, most of the stories were not new nor were there surprises but I did enjoy how they were organized. Considering the author runs a tour business, I imagined that some of the stories would be a bit dramatic and they were. There is a feminist agenda, which was also not a surprise based on the title. It was completely what I had expected. The authors cite numerous resources that I have read and I believe they did justice to these texts such as Colin Dickey’s Ghostland and Tiya Miles’ Tales from the Haunted South: Dark Tourism and Memories of Slavery from the Civil War Era.

I didn’t love part 1 and found the book a bit hard to get into but it picked up near the end of part 2 and I ended up rather enjoying it. The authors alternate chapters but I didn’t notice an obvious change in voice from the writing.

The sections include:
DEATH AND THE MAIDEN including ghosts of college campuses
“WITCHES” including the Bell Witch
MOTHERS AND WIVES including the Greenbrier Ghost
BAD GIRLS, JEZEBELS, AND KILLER WOMEN including the ghost of Mary Surratt
“MADWOMEN” including the Winchester Mystery House
SPINSTERS AND WIDOWS including a Joan Rivers ghost story
FRAUDS, FAKES, AND MYTHMAKING including the story of MARIE ROGÊT

Normally I like stories about ghosts, but I could not get into this one. Possibly because I didn't care for the narrator. This might be better read instead of listening to.