From My Reading Chair…
DING DING! 🛎️ Reception?! I'd like to check in, please!
Preferably somewhere with a history of suspicious noises and maybe some previous guests who haven't managed to figure out the self-drop checkout process quite yet. A room with a BOO, if you have one?! 👻
Welcome to Most Haunted Hotels, Pumpkins!
Eight real-life locations, a host of supernatural suspects and paranormal pioneer Yvette Fielding and the team acting as our paranormal concierge! For over two decades, she's invited us into haunted locations with empathy and curiosity and now she's handing the room keys to a whole new generation of inquisitive investigators. I adore this woman. To the very bones of me!
Her introduction immediately transported me back to my own childhood, when every unfamiliar holiday presented the most irresistible possibility: 'WHAT IF IT'S HAUNTED?!' I mean, I've planned entire holidays around this very criterion. My niece and her friends are now exactly the same. Which makes for the perfect place to begin our own haunted hotel holiday planning for 2027 thanks to this handy little book of BoooOoooOs!
Not only does Yvette bring the incredible #MostHaunted team with her, for this series she's also invited another guest along with us: Hannah Shaw. WHAT a travelling companion Hannah Shaw makes! Her illustrations are a stroke of spooky genius, bringing the hotels, their spectral inhabitants and the investigation crew to life with such character and excitement. I especially love the little footsteps wandering through the page layouts, offering younger eyeballs another route to explore when the frights become a touch too much.
Each chapter is dedicated to a hotel and begins with a supernaturally styled case-file introduction before Yvette escorts us through its history, reported hauntings and her firsthand accounts of investigating the location. The historical context gives each place its own identity, while the personal recollections bring that delicious feeling of being allowed special VIP access behind the scenes with the Most Haunted crew.
I've spent the weekend travelling vicariously through all eight hotels, which has been especially welcome considering my stupid knee has currently grounded all my actual adventures! I did, however, get a little jolt of joy when two familiar establishments appeared on the itinerary. I've visited both The Golden Fleece in York AND The Wellington Hotel in Boscastle, on separate Walpurgisnacht trips, no less!
Yvette's investigation at The Golden Fleece gave me GENUINE goosebumps! Although I didn't hear the infamous laugh of One-Eyed Jack, I remember feeling an uneasy energy about the place myself. Reading her account brought it all creeping back! I'm VERY happy to have ticked that particular haunted hotel off my bucket list and after reading some of the others, I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to visit them alone or with the new spooky squad!
One final morsel of curiosity before handing back the room key and heading towards our next supernatural destination awaits us before entering the new hotel: a Did You Know? fact. THAT'S what I call excellent hospitality!
But just when you think we've checked out all there is to see, there's one last undisclosed spooky stay waiting to unsettle your travel plans. Where?! Well, you'll have to use your newfound investigator skills to figure that out as it's very much 'undisclosed' and probably for good reason!
Five stars for hospitality & horrors aplenty! 🛎️👻
Yvette, I'll happily carry your bags on the next investigation; maybe we could do a Haunted Library tour?!
Creep on Reading, Pumpkins!