Helpful Score: 2
Excellent ghost story that takes place in historic Georgetown, D.C.
Helpful Score: 1
Starting with a seance, in which a girl speaks in a voice not her own. The game becomes terrifying and too real, and dark forgotten secrets of the past come back to life to claim new victims. Barbara Michaels is one of my favorite authors, and this one is especially scary.
Helpful Score: 1
This is absolutely the best, most chilling ghost story I have ever read. I love Barbara Michaels books but this is the best. I don't scare easily when reading but Ammie will have you sleeping with a night light. Not horror story but chilling ghost story.
Helpful Score: 1
First book I have read by this author and I can't wait to read more. it was great. Very good and interesting ghost story. Read it in one day.
I well recalled this book when I first read it in the 70's as one of my all-time favorite Gothic-y ghost stories. The lead character, Ruth Bennett, a sensible WASP-ish widow with her college student niece, Sara, encounter the ghosts of two from long-ago historic Georgetown. There is a little romance thrown in, a little history ... but in the end, this story now seems terribly dated to me from the attitudes to the clothes. Some books you can pick up and read every ten years or so (Sidhartha, Gone With the Wind) but this wasn't one of them. I used to love Barbara Michaels though - perhaps I'll pick up one of her more recent.
Gave me chills, even though I read it before and knew what was coming.
I enjoy all of Barb's books. This is an earlier book and has a great twist. Love every word. She is able to put her characters in front of you with such accuracy.
This is one of the best ghost stories I've ever read!
Michaels tackles a fairly straight-forward ghost story and succeeds. Her writing style is always pleasant and the plot unfolds easily without many side-trips or distractions. Recommended for someone looking for an old-fashioned spooky story.
Ammie, Come Home does not disappoint! It is filled with intrigue, suspense and mystery, Kept me on my toes and my nose in the book! It has a few times of droning on but that soon passes. Much of the book is dialogue. It is a timeless story. A good read!
It begins as a lark -- a harmless diversion initiated by Washington, D.C., hostess Ruth Bennett as a means of entertaining her visiting niece, Sara. But the séance conducted in Ruth's elegant Georgetown home calls something back; something unwelcome ... and palpably evil. Suddenly Sara is speaking in a voice not her own, transformed into a miserable, whimpering creature so unlike her normal, sensible self. No tricks or talismans will dispel the malevolence that now plagues the inhabitants of this haunted place -- until a dark history of treachery, lust, and violence is exposed. But the cost might well be the sanity and the lives of the living.
This was one of my favorite mysteries ever! I read it three times. It has ghosts from the Civil War time period. I absolutely loved it!
