Product Description

Annie Wilder suspected the funky 100-year-old house was haunted when she saw it for the first time. But nothing could have prepared her for the mischievous and downright scary antics that take place once she, her two children, and her cats move into the rundown Victorian home. Disembodied conversation, pounding walls, glowing orbs, and mysterious whispers soon escalate into full-fledged ghostly visits-provoking sheer terror that, over time, transforms into curiosity. Determined to make peace with her spirit guests, she invites renowned clairvoyant Echo Bodine over and learns fascinating details about each of the entities residing there.

Wilder's gripping tale provides a compelling glimpse into the otherworldly nature of the lonely spirits, protective forces, phantom pets, and departed loved ones that occupy her remarkable home.

Annie Wilder (Minnesota) is a mother and writer. She continues to bravely live in her spooky old house with three cats and numerous ghosts. This is her first book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #102769 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780738707778
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Raised Catholic in a family that had strong intuitive abilities, the unseen world of angels, spirits, and lost souls has always been a familiar part of Annie Wilder’s (Minnesota) everyday life. Wilder grew up in the rural areas of southern Minnesota and South Dakota, moving from one old, rustic farmhouse to the next, one of which had no telephone, a woodstove for heat, and a cistern as the primary water supply.

Wilder earned a B.A in Communications and Film from the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, MN and holds a level II certification in Reiki. She serves on the Heritage Preservation Commission, which serves to protect the historical, architectural, and cultural heritage in the small Mississippi river town where she now resides and where her story takes place.

House of Spirits and Whispers, her first book, is a true account of the ghosts who have visited her beautiful and haunted old house.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
UNLOVED AND SPOOKY. Those were my first impressions of the old house. It looked eerily vacant, even though the previous owner-an old man-had lived there for thirty-some years until his death six months earlier. Although shabby now, with peeling paint and a roof so timeworn it looked mossy around the edges, I could see that the Victorian house had once been grand. From the outside, it looked like an abandoned old-fashioned schoolhouse (an apt first impression, as it turned out) with what appeared to be brick siding (it wasn't), long narrow windows, and porches all around. A small twelve-paned attic window tucked under the front roof peak caught my eye because it was quaint and interesting, and I really was hoping to find a home with at least one charming feature. Because I loved old houses and my housing budget was relatively puny, I had looked at a lot of homes that were in terrible states of disrepair or had significant architectural problems (one house I looked at years before had an open staircase leading into the home's only bathroom).

Another problem I encountered with houses in my price range was a "troubled" vibe-a vibe usually caused not by the dead, but by the living. The most common form of negative energy seemed to be fear, reflected in a "compound" milieu-homes barricaded behind nearly impassable stacks of junk, mean dogs, big fences, and yards filled with old vehicles.

I had looked at dozens of houses in the preceding months. My realtor, Todd, was an uncommonly patient man, a musician at heart whose day (and night and weekend) job was selling houses. In all that time, I had only looked at one other house that seemed spooky. It was an old house at the top of a hill-a Dutch colonial, like the Amityville Horror house.. You could only get to the house by walking up a long flight of stairs-there was no driveway. My mom was looking at houses with us that day, and as the three of us climbed the steep staircase, the house's front screen door started banging open and shut. That probably would have been enough to keep me from going in, but it was a breezy day, so we attributed the door's theatrics to the wind. However, other small things inside the Dutch colonial also seemed "off." I tripped as I stepped in the porch; something felt unsettled throughout the home, but especially in the kitchen and one bedroom; and in the otherwise empty house, we came across a piece of scrap wood that had the word "DIE" spray painted on it in black.

I made an offer on the Dutch colonial anyway, after getting an estimate on completely repairing and restoring it, because it was an attractive and interesting old house and it had a really private yard. I even liked the weirdness of it being accessible only by making the pilgrimage up the steps. The owners weren't impressed with my offer, however, and the price they wanted was too high for me to be able to make the repairs to the home that I felt were necessary, so I did not end up buying the Amityville Horror house. My ability to sense the energy of places was reasonably well developed from having made my living by cleaning houses at different times in my life. I believe that anyone can tune in to just about anything if they give it enough energy and attention. Since I spent long days working alone, scrubbing and sweeping and dusting my way through my customers' homes, I became attuned to houses.

It's also true that a strong intuitive ability runs in my family. My mom can see and hear spirits, and both her mother and mother's mother, who were Irish, were psychic, too. I adored my Irish grandma, who was very kind and always interested in the things kids have to say. Her house was beautiful and magical-there were ceramic elves and leprechauns hidden in her houseplants, satin gowns and fur coats in her closet. She even had an entire kitchen drawer just for cookies and doughnuts.

My grandma used to tell me stories about banshees and fairies. She said her mother believed that the fairies, or "little people," had come to this country with the Irish immigrants, hidden in suitcases and trunks. At night, my great grandma would set out a saucer of milk or bread crusts for the little people who, according to her, would disguise themselves as rabbits when humans were around.

On my dad's side, his father, who was a Montana farmer, would just "know stuff." For example, one time when they were driving, my grandpa knew their neighbor they had just passed on the road had been in a car accident and they had to turn around and go help him. My dad is able to "dowse" to find buried water pipes and electrical lines. And my dad's German grandmother had premonitions of tragic events, including a fatal plane crash. I overheard the adults talking about it when I was a kid. It terrified me since I was already afraid of my great grandma. She was very small and stern, and wore dark clothes all the time. Since she could see the future, I was afraid she could read my mind and knew how much I didn't want to go to her house for visits.

When Todd told me about the big old Victorian house in the neighboring small historic river town of Sibley, Minnesota, he warned me that something might be wrong with it. Even though it was priced far below market value, it had been on the market for six months with no offers.

But I was three weeks away from the move-out date for my home, and the deal on the house I thought I was buying had...(Continues)

Customer Reviews

"Whispers" of creepiness
Pretty interesting first-person account of a haunting -- another scary ghost-ridden house that somehow compelled the owner to fall in love with the place at first sight despite its creepiness (see "Haunted: The Incredible True Story of a Canadian Family's Experience Living in a Haunted House" by Dorah L. Williams).

One of the first occurrences was pretty creepy -- the author heard a disembodied voice having a one-way conversation and it sounded eerily tinny and hollow. "It was frustrating to me that I could almost but not quite understand what the voice had said. Hollow and flat, with an odd metallic quality, the voice had been just indistinct enough to remain indecipherable. It wasn't gobbledegook, but most of the words seemed to be missing syllables or would taper off into nothingness." That's the sort of concept that'll keep you up at 3 a.m....

There was another intriguing and kind of funny incident wherein the narrator has an out-of-body experience and, in that state, decides to check the house for hidden money (after having found a can of old money, documents, etc. in the basement). She sees the ghosts of two sisters who lived in the house: "My feelings were a little hurt because they seemed to disapprove of me. I wondered if they objected to my astral search for money. I couldn't think of any other reason for them to be annoyed. I was still really tired and decided that not only did I not care if they were annoyed, but that I was annoyed with them for having an opinion about it."

The author ended each chapter with a tease of what was to come, which made for good segues but eventually got a little gimmicky/predictable formula-wise.

The incidents themselves didn't really build up a storyline-type momentum -- since it's a true account, that makes sense, but you still hope for reveals and revelations that just didn't happen. Yet I felt the author tried to build that suspense even if in the end she knew there were no cinematic climaxes. But it's still a well-told, engagingly matter-of-fact documentation of strange phenomena.

Very interesting reading
This was an interesting book about a house filled with spirits of all sorts (none were too scary, however) but it needed some editing. The author has a tendency to skip around all over the place while telling her story which drove me a little nuts after awhile. I prefer things all orderly-like and this was too scattered. Still, I enjoyed the author. She seems like a fun, down-to-earth lady with a very cool home.

Spooky, quirky, suspenseful and even funny...
Just in time for Halloween! If you enjoy some real personality, quirkiness and spiritual questing served alongside your ghostly manifestations and other hair-raising events, then what are you waiting for? Throw this one in the shopping cart. Especially because Leon (the brooding, tobacco-chewing chief ghost at Annie Wilder's house) might get even tougher to live with if "his" book gets less than its due.

Full disclosure: The author is a friend, I took a look at the manuscript early on, and I've been to her magical, spooky house 8 or 10 times. Weird things definitely happen there. I stayed there one night and had a house-inspired, ghosty dream. In my dream, a little boy was standing in the room watching me sleep. Then a bunch of Annie's relatives started filing into the bedroom. Feeling a little self-conscious, I got up and left the room. That was when I found a new room in her house--one that doesn't actually exist (physically, anyway). It was long and narrow like a portrait gallery, and there were paintings on the wall that changed scenes when I looked away. One, I remember, started out as a picture of a nice white brick farmhouse, then changed to something else.

After I woke up and told Annie about the dream, she got an odd look on her face, and said that she used to have a painting like that. Yikes.

Her story is suspenseful, there's a full cast of characters and cats, and the writing is quite well done. There is a lot to sink your teeth into: she incorporates various alternative spirituality ideas and practices into the story as part of her life in the house--interesting and educational, too. Leon the Ghost becomes incorporated into the family and repair projects-kind of a "Ghost and Mrs. Muir" thing (without the romance). Read it. Annie really is an original. What else would you call a woman who is much more afraid of snakes than of being haunted?