I am a fan of gothic literature, the way how it's dark and atmospheric, with forces seen and unseen threatening our heroes who are sometimes not quite reliable... I love it!

In this book, the authors search through America's history for stories, real stories that may as well have dropped out of the strangest gothic book. No trope is left unturned, everything is covered, the ghost ships, haunted houses, doomed relationships, crossroad ghosts… Anything strange and macabre, it's there.

It's hard to believe that these stories aren't fictional, but the authors do such a great job in fleshing out these people, especially in giving voices and names to women who were historically reduced to ghosts, mistresses, jilted lovers. The writing is feminist, but it also tackles many important topics like racism, slavery, misogyny, xenophobia and discrimination. I was expecting a storytelling narrative but it was mostly essayistic. It's a well done and researched project.

I was surprised that, even though these stories are a great part of local and national folklore, I was only familiar with one or two. My only complaint is that it could have included the pictures of people and places it describes, where applicable. Because they're so interesting and vivid, I was clutching my phone and googling almost every story!

If you love gothic stuff, this is a very cool read, and I fully recommend 💀

This was a concept that worked well and was unique concept for a haunted history book, it uses the historical element perfectly and was glad everything that I was wanting in this type of book. Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes wrote this so well and enjoyed the overall feel of this. It was everything that I wanted and enjoyed the spooky element to this.

This is a hard one. It’s meticulously researched and has great source lost in the back. It’s sort of like a historical haunting and an academic essay had babies, repeatedly. I’m not sure how the garden variety reader would get into this, it’s very informative, but not a page turner. Maybe not what I expected.

My thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Publishing- Citadel for an advance copy of a book that tells about the ghostly presences that fill this country, of people unfairly forgotten, or of places that modern political leaders are trying to make us forget, and what it tells of our sense of place in this modern world.

My dad's mother was called Nan by everyone in the extended family, and also was considered a witch. Even the most Irish Catholic of us knew that Nan was touched by something, and was in touch with things we couldn't see, nor understand. Nan was born in Ireland, but looked like a citizen of the world. I remember being on a subway with her, and a woman sitting down next to her, speaking in some language I still don't know, Nan going It will be better and other things like that. Four stops later the woman got off, and I asked Nan who she was. No idea, but she had problems, I think she's better now. Nan saw ghosts, also. Some she didn't like to talk about, some that she was happy that they seemed to be around. Nan passed too early, something I think she knew was going to happen, and the whole family has never been the same. So I have an understanding of ghosts, though I don't have Nan's sense of them. I would like too, but maybe I couldn't handle that responsibility. I have read many books on hauntings, but few have left me with feeling the way I did at the end of this. Not just a book about haunted places, haunted people, but a haunted reality we find ourselves in. America’s Most Gothic: Haunted History Stranger than Fiction by Leanna Renee Hieber & Andrea Janes is a look at literature, a social study, a biography of people who should be celebrated, and a look at the dark secrets people still don't want to deal with, but casts a dark shadow on us all.

The book seems almost from the beginning like a guide to haunted places. Starting on an island in Newfoundland with a woman left behind by her evil guardian for loving another man. A gothic romance plot for sure. However this was a real life event, and from here the authors level up their narrative into being far more than just oh this place is haunted, and that place is haunted. The author switch off chapter by chapter each writing almost personal essays dealing with places where people passed and strange events that followed, or places that have been omitted from history. Like Florida sugar plantations, where the current government in Florida discusses slavery as a jobs training program, and how happy the slaves were. They look at famous women, an actress who rivaled the best male actors in portraying characters in Shakespeare, and the life that she lived. And others, many unfairly forgotten. The authors discuss the real strength of Gothic literature, calling things out, pointing out things in society that keep others down, and how more of that might be needed today.

I enjoyed the authors previous book A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America's Ghosts mainly for its stories about ghosts, and really women who were passed over in history. This book is similar, but there is more to it, a bit of anger, a bit of despair, and a lot of hope. I have never thought of Gothic literature in the way these authors do, and in reading this I suddenly had different thoughts about the books I have read, many they mention here. The essays are also more personal, talking about their lives, and how the lives of these ghosts, or forgotten women share much, and what this means to them. The essays are all good, different in ways, sometimes more annoyed by circumstances, sometimes sad. Always hopeful.

Ghosts get a bad rap, and it is good to see authors using the idea of the ghosts that are around us to show the world as it is. Not many books on the paranormal make me think of modern politics, two hundred year old stories, and my Nan, this did. A really great read, one that can be read straight through, or essay by essay. Perfect for these times, ghost lovers, and gothic fans, who I am sure will accept the challenges the authors present, and the spirit they give it.

This is a fascinating read. I highly recommend it to fans of literature and history. I appreciate the authors’ attempts to give voices to the voiceless.

In between the descriptive and spooky language, there is some solid storytelling in this book about ghosts. Especially recommended for folks that live near the landmarks that are listed in the book.

“America’s Most Gothic” is a highly-anticipated title in nonfiction horror from Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes. The book goes through different cases of women through places in America. For instance, they have a chapter devoted to Florida called ‘Swamp Goth: Southern Gothic in the Sunshine State’ and they right away point out that while most people aren’t quite sure whether to put Florida into the field of is it Southern, much less it is Gothic, and then much less ‘is it Southern Gothic,’ the answer is a resounding yes for readers familiar with the landscape and history. My first thing would be to say… look at the works of Tananarive Due (who the authors cover in this chapter, and do a good job of). Born and raised in Florida, and having deeply personal horrors related to that state, including the legacy of transatlantic slavery in her ancestry, as well as a mother and father who fought front and center in the Civil Rights movement of the 50s and 60s, but then with the tragic and horrifying murder of one of her male relatives, Robert, while he was sent to the Dozier School in the early parts of the 20th century, killed at 15 years old, something the family wouldn’t find out for years later, and which she spent almost 8 years working on as her award-winning novel, “The Reformatory.”

And the other thing Florida calls to mind with Southern Gothic is of course, the immortal and incomparable Zora Neale Hurston, who grew up in the all-Black township of Eatonville, and upon which so much of her work is centered, dedicated, and also where she did so much in terms of collecting folk songs and stories of the Black people there to preserve them for future generations, including supernatural tales and beliefs.

So, okay I’ve said it in a long-winded way, but yes, Florida is absolutely Gothic and it is absolutely Southern Gothic.

And, as one of the authors points out, when she was driving near St. Augustine, she came on a back road called Old Dixie Highway (this might be a bit reductive to people reading my review, but Dixie is basically code for ‘We like the Confederacy here.’) She found properties there like Dummett Plantation, Florida having a very complex history with transatlantic slavery, of course.

The authors explain that sugar plantations are in northeast Florida and they include … well, you can read more of this chapter to find out, and I don’t want to ‘spoil’ things for people who are not as familiar.

Florida is also the place of history of Seminole Native Americans, who people should know a LOT more about.

The authors do an *EXCELLENT* job of connecting the links between transatlantic slavery and the history of the Gothic as a genre. Definitely spend a lot of time on this chapter, readers!

Within this book, there are stories of terrible things that happened to women, and legends of ghosts, or how they became ghosts, and it makes for riveting reading.

This is currently, as it stands, my favourite nonfiction horror book of the year so far.

One of the praise quotes from horror writer Jonathan Maberry does an excellent job distilling the fact that this book, while talking about terrible things and murders that happened to women studied here, it’s immersive, treated with care, and very interesting to read each case.

Other highlights inlcude the chapter on Melrose Hall, which is quite good.

The book also addresses the very painful but important to know history of women sent to institutions because they were deemed “not stable.”

There are also ‘famous’ ghosts like Resurrection Mary of Chicago.

Overall, highly recommended and very well done, AND totally a great book to include for Halloween displays.

Thanks so much to NetGalley for the free Kindle book. My review is voluntary given, and my opinions are my own.

I absolutely love gothic novels, so I knew this was the book for me. Was first drawn to the genre with the Dark Shadows miniseries in the 90s, but because of streaming, I know the 1960s version is so much better.

I was a bit worried that there would be graphic descriptions of murders and possibly even drawings or photos. Thankfully, there wasn't anything like that. Rather, it focuses more on the haunting. For example, it will gave some detail some detail about John Lennon's death,but then talked more about his spirit supposedly haunting the Dakota.

Although I'm not convinced ghosts are real, I recognize there's a possibility they could be. Either way, I enjoy learning about this subject, as it is a part of history. Would definitely recommend this!

This is another winner from these authors! Delving into histories from all around the world, Hieber and Janes focus on the ghosts of women and the places they haunt--and why they're associated with those places. Using feminist approaches to history and folklore, they deftly tease out the underlying meanings and phenomena behind these hauntings and lore. It's a perfect read for anyone interested in ghosts who wants to know more about the was in which a ghost story is born and grows, and what feeds it as par tof that process.

Let me just fangirl a second over this book I'm reading. I’m only a chapter into the @netgalley ARC of America’s Most Gothic: Haunted History Stranger than Fiction by Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes, but I’ve already pre-ordered a copy for the September release (because I like to keep these kinds of books).

They had me at the introduction explaining “This is not a travel guide, nor is it intended to be a complete or comprehensive state-by-state guide to haunted places. Neither is it an academic or authoritative guide to the Gothic; for that there are many wonderful books already in existence, and we have listed some at the end of the book, along with a list of talented modern authors of fiction working in the genre today. We are not professors or his-torians; we are storytellers, and we share these tales in the same spirit of wonder with which we encountered them.” What I was hoping to read came next in the introduction, “We'll be focusing mostly on women's stories, because when one takes a look at Gothic literature…” Then, the first chapter, “Canadian Gothic: Bear Woman” shares the story of Marguerite de la Rocque. I won’t spoil the details but it has the feel of A Haunted History of Invisible Women, which I enjoy so much that I even require it for one of my courses.

As a preteen, I gobbled up Gothic romances by the dozens. The image of a heroine wearing a long, white nightgown, fleeing a darkened castle, guaranteed a good read. In this book, the authors look at many of the Gothic tales that make up part of our American literary history. They usually center her around women, and in many ways, they gave women the power, at least between the pages of a book, to be the heroine or villain of their own story.