*Read My Review & Enter to Win!* PARANORMAL TEXAS by Tui Snider

PARANORMAL TEXAS
Your Travel Guide to Haunted Places
Near Dallas & Fort Worth 
2ND EDITION

by

TUI SNIDER

  Genre: Travel / Haunted Places / Texas History

Publisher: Castle Azle Press

Date of Publication: September 19, 2019

Number of Pages: 210 with 100+ black & white images

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More Haunted Places and True Ghost Stories!

Tui Snider's popular travel guide to haunted places in North Texas is back with a fully updated 2nd Edition featuring more haunted places and true ghost stories!

What's new in Paranormal Texas, 2nd Edition?

Just like the original travel guide, Paranormal Texas 2nd Edition gives readers haunted history and directions to sites where paranormal activity is reported in the Dallas - Fort Worth Metroplex.

The 2nd edition now includes:

• Photos: Readers asked for photos of haunted places. Paranormal Texas, 2nd edition has over 50 photos of haunted towns, haunted hotels, and more.

• Ghost hunting tips: Tui Snider explains what she has learned since she began attending paranormal investigations with Texas ghost hunters.

• More haunted places: Several new venues (including a haunted doll museum!) with fascinating haunted history were added to Paranormal Texas, 2nd edition.

• Firsthand accounts: Readers asked for more true ghost stories and hauntings. (She even shares personal experiences with paranormal activity, including a strange encounter with her doppelganger at a haunted hotel!)

All the above, PLUS a paranormal activity evidence database:

See the paranormal activity for yourself: Readers can access an online database with links to EVPs, ghost photos, videos, and other evidence gathered by paranormal investigators who have visited the haunted sites in her book.

•Continually updated: This database will be continually updated with EVPs, anomalous photos, videos, and other data gathered at haunted places featured in Paranormal Texas, 2nd edition.

•Add your paranormal activity: Readers can contact the author if they have paranormal evidence to add!

Is Paranormal Texas, 2nd edition for YOU?

1. Ghost Hunters - If you want to plan a fun road trip to haunted places (with or without ghost hunting equipment) Paranormal Texas, 2nd edition can help.

2. Armchair Travelers - If you prefer reading about haunted history, Paranormal Texas, 2nd edition can take you on an exciting armchair tour through haunted towns of North Texas.

"Tui's 2nd edition is spot on fun and thrilling for everyone 

to read as only Tui can tell it!"  

- Greg Stephens, Paranormal Investigator (RIP)

CLICK TO PURCHASE!

5 Surprising Facts about Haunted Places in Paranormal Texas

I don’t always choose to drop my name in the hat for each book review opportunity that pops up in our blogger group. But, seeing as how Halloween was coming up, and, quite frankly, seeing as how this book looked totes awesome, I nearly screamed my ever-loving lungs out whilst filling out the review request form. It’s a good thing that Google forms don’t record sound, ‘cause Kristine would prolly’ve called the Po-Po thinkin’ there’d been some bloody-murder occurrence.

At any rate, I squealed with glee when I received my autographed … YES, AUTOGRAPHED (y’all know I lurve it when the author signs the book) copy in the mail. I was so uppity about the signed copy that I didn’t even realize that the fabulous Tui Snider had also included a cute handwritten postcard (featuring herself and an alien-looking dude. Y’all know I lurve me some aliens!) until I carefully (‘cause y’all know I love my books to remain looking new) turned back the cover and –

Out popped the SWAG!

“Be still my beating heart!” I says to myself. “Herself must be a kindred spirit!” I also says to myself.

Gaze upon the splendor. Is it not Coolio?

Alas, I digress from my moment of fangirlitude.

I know…I know. Y’all came here for a book review. And so, I shall sally-forth and tally-ho, yo!

Y’all. This book … gosh … this book is just plain F to the U to the N – FUN! The other day, I saw a post on Facebook in which one of my friends was saying how she wishes she could do some traveling like she sees some other people on Facebook doing.

PARANORMAL TEXAS by Tui Snider is the kind of book that makes you feel as if you’ve just taken an enthralling, albeit spooky, road trip with your BFF.

I plan on messaging that FB friend and advising her to grab a copy of this book. Because, it really, truly does feel as if I’ve taken a drive across Texas to some places I’d like to visit – and to some places I actually have visited years ago – whilst doing some ghost (and alien) hunting.

Snider takes you for an informative ride to, and a guide through, some of the most haunted places near Dallas & Fort Worth, Texas. I totes geeked out over the history she weaves throughout each haunted visit. The backstory of each place was also enthralling. Y’all know I’m a history nerd – I minored in history at university, after all! And I really loved how she managed to clear the name of one poor dude who’d been accused all these years of having murdered his entire family, before hanging himself. Poor ole fella had been innocent all along (though the folks of his own time actually knew how he and his family died) No, I ain’t gonna tell ya! You’ve gotta read the book to find out this kinda stuff, yo!

Now, y’all know I don’t give any spoilers, and I wish y’all would stop asking. No, I won’t give away any in this review, either. But what I will give you are these deets:

This book is organized alphabetically by the town names, and then by HAUNTED sites within each town. This is very handy for those who’d love to plan an actual road trip (unlike the armchair one I took.) Each section includes enough information, without droning on and on. Short, fun, and to the point.

I simply loved the Introduction. I got a really good feel for the author’s sense of humor and writing style, before digging into the meat of the book.

One of my absolute geekiologiest (I just made that word up) moments in reading PARANORMAL TEXAS was in the Introduction. The author has actually created the Paranormal Texas Evidence Database where readers can go check out some EVPs and other stuff to scare the doowocky out of themselves in the dark of the night (‘cause that’s when I do my best reading – and writing – in the dark of the night. Hence the perpetual dark circles under my eyes.) She also gives readers the option to submit their own spooky stories to her via email to be added to the database.

Should I submit my story about those freaky, disembodied legs I experienced just up the road from here? 

Hmm …. I may just do that.

Okay, okay, I might give y’all one teeny tiny itsy-bitsy spoiler: there’s a Texas cemetery that I’ve long wished to visit. I’m not going to tell you the name of it, but I will tell you that it’s known to contain the grave of an extraterrestrial that died in a fiery UFO crash in the 1800s. Yes. You can imagine my level of midnight geekitudology (I just made up this word, too) whilst reading that section.

Or…maybe you can’t. Prolly not.

Oh! Before I forget …

One of my fave things of this book is that Snider has included photos she took, herself, of many of the places she visited whilst writing PARANORMAL TEXAS. The photos are in black and white. Normally, I would scoff at the fact that they weren’t in color. But, truthfully, the black and white photos lend that extra je ne sais quoi of spookiness to the pages of chilling ghost stories and hauntings in Snider’s PARANORMAL TEXAS.

I fear I may have droned on for too long here. Suffice it to say that I truly enjoyed PARANORMAL TEXAS by Tui Snider. It’s a great book to read for any time of year, but especially for the month of October … when spirits find that opening in the fabric betwixt this world and the next and slip through to scare the doowockie out of the unsuspecting living.

Grab a copy for yourself and and one for your BFF! Plan a spooky October road trip, even if it’s an armchair one! And come back here and let me know which was your favorite stop along the way of haunted places near Dallas & Fort Worth!

The bottom line of this here review of PARANORMAL TEXAS by Tui Snider is this:

Her writing is witty, engaging, and intelligent … just plain fun!

And that’s why I hereby grant

PARANORMAL TEXAS by Tui Snider

5 Gleaming Scary As All Get Out Brooms!

Tui Snider is an award-winning writer, speaker, photographer, and musician specializing in offbeat sites, overlooked history, cemetery symbolism, and haunted lore. As she puts it, “I used to write fiction, but then I moved to Texas!” Tui lectures frequently at universities, libraries, conferences, and bookstores.This fall, she will speak about the Great Airship Mystery of 1897 at this year’s UFO Congress and teach a course on Understanding Cemetery Symbols at Texas Christian University. She also shares weekly info-videos based on her research at her YouTube channel. Snider’s writing and photography have been featured in a variety of media outlets, including WFAA TV, Coast to Coast AM, LifeHack, Langdon Review, the City of Plano, Wild Woman Waking, Shades of Angels and many more. She has several more books in progress.

◆  WEBSITE  ◆  FACEBOOK  ◆  TWITTER  ◆

◆  AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE  ◆

◆  INSTAGRAM  ◆   YOUTUBE  ◆ GRAVE HOUR ON INSTAGRAM

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GIVEAWAY!  GIVEAWAY!  GIVEAWAY!

 GRAND PRIZE (US only):  Signed Paperback + Handmade Cemetery Angel Pendant +$10 Amazon Gift Card

2^ND PRIZE (US only): Signed Copy

3^RD PRIZE (International): Kindle eBook

(US ONLY)

  October 1-October 11, 2019

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10/1/19	Reading by Moonlight
10/2/19	Bibliotica
10/2/19	Book Fidelity
10/3/19	StoreyBook Reviews
10/4/19	Nerd Narration
10/4/19	Hall Ways Blog
10/5/19	Carpe Diem Chronicles
10/6/19	Forgotten Winds
10/6/19	Books and Broomsticks
10/7/19	The Page Unbound
10/8/19	The Book Review
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10/9/19	Missus Gonzo
10/10/19	All the Ups and Downs
10/11/19	That's What She's Reading

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On the Other Side of Last Night

Ever have that experience that knocks you off-tracks and tilts your view in such a way that everything around you looks and sounds a bit different ... a bit less real? Even the light of day has not washed away the strange, permeating unease that seeped into my reality in the dark of last night.

Having spent a jolly day in Houston with my kids yesterday, helping them pack and get ready to move into their new apartment that will overlook the Houston skyline, I undertook my trek north toward home just at sunset. By the time I reached Kroger in my town, only the faintest of blue glow hovered over the western horizon in the long-diminished wake of the setting sun. I dashed into the store to quickly grab a couple of items. Night had fully fallen over town like a silken navy cloak by the time I climbed back into the Ford F-150 and turned for home.

I live outside city limits of a small bedroom town. On a moonless night, the roads are the very definition of dark. But I’ve always enjoyed the imagined magic of driving at night and the way the beams from the headlights slice through the drape of darkness to reveal a roadside flower here, a scampering raccoon there...and always lighting the way home.

Looking back, LB and I used to imagine what scary things could jump out in front of us on our oft-nighttime treks from town. We would wonder what lived in the clump of woods that became the inspiration for the Haunted Woods in my book, CICADA. “What if a werewolf dashed out of there?” or on the way home from Juanita’s house, we’d wonder what it would be like if the Headless Horseman appeared on the narrow country lane we’d nicknamed “Ichabod Crane Lane.” Or, “what would we do if a UFO suddenly appeared over our car on the dark ride home down County Line Road,” not so far as the crow flies from where a similar event actually happened in the ‘80s? Of course, none of those things ever occurred, but it was fun to feed the imagination. And we were never spooked or creeped out when we climbed out of our car to unlock the front door of home.

Funny how a handful of minutes can have such a huge, altering impact.

My drive home was quite pleasant, reliving happy clips of memories made only hours before at my kids’ house and listening to a talk show on the radio about the importance of prayer. I wasn’t the least bit drowsy, or weak from hunger. I keep rewinding to verify that all my faculties were properly working, even now in the light of day.

And so I turned into the quiet, dark entrance of our remote neighborhood, making sure to keep the 20 mph clip past the first dim set of streetlights before I take the fork in the road at the stop sign where one of the streetlights is burnt out.

And that’s where it happened, you see...

It came from the left side of the street, where the dark shadows pool at the side of the house on the corner, just two drives down from my own house. I blinked hard. Several times, and slammed on the breaks, fearing I was about to run over the person walking right into my truck headlights.

But the way the light reflected...and sort of refracted...across the thighs as the legs swiftly walked toward my truck...the odd movement in step as if a person had been filmed walking and then the video had be sped up and projected onto thin air...it caused my breath to catch in my throat.

There was no torso. There was no head or arms. No face. No feet. Just legs like those of a slender woman. Swiftly walking into my truck headlights from the dark left side of the road toward the passenger side headlight.

This pick up is no small truck. When I check the oil, the hood hits me chest-high. For someone to be that close, I would not have been able to see waist down to the calf. So the legs...those disembodied legs had to have been floating above the road somewhat...somehow.

Even as I’m typing this, an enormous lump is gripping me in the chest. You see, I’ve never been scared of spirits, because I know who I am in Christ. I KNOW greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world. I’ve experienced things in my life that I KNOW are not normal on this human plane.

But last night was different. And the odd thing is as the legs approached the passenger headlight, I had the briefest thought...like a message...that flitted across my brain “this is the only time you’ll see this.” Then they faded away. Not slowly like a mist, but a quick fade-out. And then there was nothing.

I hit the gas, flinging gravel behind me into the night, and screeched into my circle drive, destroying part of the grass, and almost running over one of the wildling cats I feed.
My teeth were chattering, heart racing, throat clenching so tight I could choke. I gripped the steering wheel and quickly took an inventory of my faculties. “Have I had a stroke? No, I’m not numb anywhere. No tingling anywhere. I can speak okay. Am I hallucinating? No, I’m not hungry, haven’t had alcohol in over a decade.”

I was in full control of my faculties. So I shut off the engine, turned off the headlights, and gathered up the courage to grab my little Kroger bag of groceries and stumble up the front porch steps, fumble with the keys in the dark, and fling the front door open to discover I’d forgotten to leave a lamp on.

My fearless companion was in the back yard, barking ferociously with a sort of scream to her calls. I nearly knocked the living room lamp off the table turning it on, and, after bolting the door closed behind me, I dashed through the house to let her in through the back door. Her eyes were as huge as mine, as if she’d seen it, too, whatever it was. As soon as she’d eaten her dinner, she snuggled deep into her dog pillow and didn’t say another peep, as if she was clinging to it for comfort, and moving only to crawl into bed with me hours later.

Every light in this house stayed on until the wee hours of 3:30 AM this morning, until I finally gave in to exhaustion. Until the neighborhood dogs finally stopped their ferocious, protective barking.

But I am telling you what I saw...what I really, truly saw. Several times, I’ve gone out to the edge of my drive to look up the street toward the stop sign where I saw it. And goose bumps shower over me again.

What was it that I saw last night? Why did it dash for my headlights that way? I’ve lived in this neighborhood for seventeen years and have never experienced anything like that...never been terrified to take the dog out in the middle of the night or get out of my car and enter my home.

A handful of minutes can alter a person in ways one could never imagine. No. I don’t intend to live in fear. I am a Child of God. But, today, I must ponder these things ... must make sense of what I saw ... wonder what the heck it was all about ... especially while there’s plenty of daylight.