Rachel Jordan

Wow this is my first review on BookLikes and I'm going to start with a book I mentioned in a previous blog post "The Ghost Hunter's."

Now if a book contains any element of truth I'm really interested to read it and see how fact and fiction blend.

"The Ghost Hunter's" is told from the perspective of Sarah Grey, a young women, who in 1926, becomes assistant to Harry Price one of Britain's best known psychic investigators.

Having lost her father in the war, it is  Sarah's mother who becomes obsessed with finding a medium who can let her speak to her late husband; and it is through this search Sarah encounters Price for the first time.

Price is determined to expose fake mediums as he doesn't believe authentic ones exists, and it is this work Sarah helps him with.

But everything changes when a national paper asks Price to investigator Borley Rectory; as the night Sarah and Price spend there changes both their lives for ever.

In this his debut novel Neil Spring weaves fact and fiction effortless to give a new take on both Harry Price and Borley Rectory.

Now if you are looking for a horror story, you will need to look elsewhere as this book is psychologically driven.

Sarah Grey's character is Neil's creation, but she is a very likable and well crafted. You can almost feel her pain at different stages throughout the book.

Harry Price had the reputation of being the best known psychic investigator, not only in Britain but beyond. These days a lot of his work, especially that on Borley has been  dispelled as fraudulent, and in this book Neil portrays him as a secretive man who is also cunning and deceitful.

No one knows for sure just what happened at Borley Rectory, but even today it is still something of an enigma.

Did Price fabricate a lot of it as purported in the book?

We shall never know, although even today there reports of strange happenings in Borley Church.

This a wonderful book and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Exactly one month today "The Haunting of Dove Cote House" will be published.

Right now I'm not exactly sure how I feel about that to be honest.

I mean a lot of people dream of seeing their book in print and I'm going to be doing that soon.

And yes I like so many others have dreamt of this moment.

So why am I not jumping up and down with joy celebrating?

Quite simply because I am still going through my manuscript before handing it over to the company that is self-publishing it for me.

My one thought right now is to get that work done and hand it over.

Once I've done that I'm certain I will experience not only a sense of relief, but also a nervous expectation as I count down the day until the book becomes available to all. 

The day my life long dream finally becomes a reality.

In my last post I spoke about Borley being one of the places I would love to visit.

Unfortunately the Rectory doesn't exist any more, but the Church is still experiencing unexplained phenomena to this day.

Who knows perhaps one day I will finally get there?

Last night I finished reading Neil Spring's debut novel "The Ghost Hunter's" all about Borley and it's investigation by Harry Price.

Now Borley was called "the most haunted house in Britain" at the time, although no one knows for sure just what happened.

Harry Price was the "psychic detective," a man who set out to prove that mediums were frauds and the after life doesn't exist; and apparently ended up a believer.

Neil Spring cleverly weaves real events with fictional ones, which makes this book into something more than your traditional haunted house story.

I find the book to be an interesting new take on Price and Borley and recommend it to anyone interested in either.

What do I believe about Borley and the part Harry Price played?

First to Price.

The man was an enigma at the time, although since then a shadow has been cast over his investigation of the Rectory, and it has been dismissed as a hoax.

Did he pull off all the phenomena himself? The only person who knows the answer to that is Harry Price himself, and since he died in the 40's I think it's safe to say he took the secret to the grave.

And just what about Borley?

Well the reports of a nun being seen go back to 1900 I do believe, so they were circulating long before Price was called in by a national paper to investigate.

As to the identity of who the nun was we may never know.

At the end of his book Neil Spring reports that in 2004 I think it was, work was carried out close to where the Rectory had stood.

During this time the remains of a woman were found buried.

Is this just a weird coincidence?

Not to me it isn't, when you think of the messages that were reportedly written by an unseen hand on the walls of the  Rectory.

So yes, I do believe that something supernatural did happen at Borley over a period of time and has continued at the Church to the present day.

When it comes to Harry Price, I'm afraid the jury is out!

One question I believe author's get asked a lot is what made you want to become a writer.

Well I don't know why other people write but I can tell you why I decided I would finally do it.

From an early age there were three things that I loved:

Writing,

Reading

and the Paranormal.

I learnt to read when I was small, in fact I do believe I was able to read before I could walk.

From that day on I've loved to sit down with a book and lose myself in it completely for a little while.

To me it is one of the greatest pleasures anyone can have, and it helps me to relax at the end of a busy day.

As for the writing that came a little while later.

I take after my late father as I am left handed. My late mother was right handed.

This did cause my poor mum some problems because of the way I held a pencil or pen but eventually I got there.

I remember my big clumsy block letters, that I finally was able to turn into words and sentences. And then of course I had to learn how to do joined up writing which I don't believe caused me too many difficulties.

While all this was going on I began writing short stories which by all accounts weren't to bad.

As for the paranormal that was something that has always interested me and something I have read about over the years. Borley is one place in particular that I would still love to visit, and the day spent in Pluckley was very interesting to say the least.

But more about my personal paranormal experiences another time.

Eventually I did some freelance journalism, but like everyone else, life changes happened and I was unable to carry on.

Then last year I knew I had a story I wanted to tell and I just had to get it out there.

Actually I have more than one, but I'll talk about that another time as well.

I looked around at my self-publishing options, and found one I was pleased with, and then I started work on The Haunting of Dove Cote House.

Now a lot of people would think I'm starting my writing career late as I turned 50 last year, but I don't.

I have three passions as I said, and now I am able to combine my love for writing and the paranormal. Hopefully this will result in a book I would love to read myself and appeals to others too.

Who could ask for anything more?

Someone once said that everyone has a book inside them.

Which begs the question if that is true why doesn't everyone find the time to sit down and right?

Perhaps time is one of the main reasons why. People hold down regular jobs which can put them under stress enabling them to not have any time.

You also have to consider a person's private life.

Then of course if you do find the time to write your book, there is the job of finding an agent and also a publisher.

Then there is confidence, and wondering if anyone will even bother to buy the thing you have invested so much time over.

In this day and age that is very hard to do with so many aspiring authors looking for the same thing.

But I believe if you can find the time to sit and write, even if it's only a page a day because of your circumstances, that book that is inside you can get out there.

Thankfully these days if you decide to be an independent author you have a number of self-publishing options. There are people who genuinely want to support new authors get their books out there and will do all they can to help.

Some do the work for free and only take a cut of your sales, so there is no need to worry about financing your project.

There are sites which let you sign up free to promote both yourself as an author and your book..

You will also find sites who only take an initial fee, or a yearly one depending what service you sign up to which will help you get word out about your novel.

It is possible to find someone who will set up a virtual book tour for you and these don't have to prove expensive.

So perhaps if more people who trying believe that they can find the time to give their book a chance to see day light, more new authors will start turning up.

Just know that if you look hard enough you will always find a way to make your dream come true.