Ammie, Come Home

Quick and disposable genre fiction (in this case, it's "supernatural suspense") but Michaels is able to design a lean and efficient plot that runs like sleek clockwork. There are zero literary pretensions, but she's a great deal of fun: her dialogue tartly convincing and her plot twists are both surprising and chilling. Her characters are also jolly: I especially adored the cynical, skeptical, helplessly love-struck Bruce, who displays unexpected depths beneath his facade of antagonistic intellectualism.

Ammie, Come Home by Barbara Michaels is the first of the Georgetown gothic mysteries by Barbara Michaels. I read it after reading the last in the series, Stitches in Time first (not realizing it was part of a trilogy).

It's the close of the 1960s and Ruth, a 40s something widow is having her niece, Sara, over to stay. Things begin to go awry when she is dropped off by her college professor — a man clearly going through a midlife crises — as seen through his choice of dress and his cute little sports car.

Sara begins having trouble sleeping, thinking she's hearing a neighbor call for a missing bet named Sammie. But soon it's apparent that it can't be a missing pet. It has to be something more sinister. Perhaps the house is haunted? Or show more maybe it's all one big prank?

The haunting is an excuse to drag out gender roles and gender politics — hot topics for Barbara Michaels / Elizabeth Peters early works. Although she does still include explorations of gender roles, she was tempered them and hidden them better in her plots. The Georgetown trilogy seems the most rife with gender politics of any of her books or series and the politics get in the way of an otherwise interesting (albeit formulaic) haunted house story.

As I was reading it, I had a nagging sense of deja vu, and not just from having read the last book in the series. I attributed the feeling to the fact I was also reading The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong as the ghosts Chloë keeps encountering seem to be hiding in all the same places as the ones in Ruth's home.

But no, the post on the Gothic Romance Forum snapped it all into place for me. There was an ABC made for TV movie in 1970. I'm sure I watched it in reruns on my grandmother's cable. I went through a phase where I watched every single horror film I could find on cable (as this was before video rental stores or streaming media). show less

Where to start?

I've been hearing my mom rave about how much she loved this book for ever, which in the way of such things between mothers and daughter sometimes, had the perverse effect of making me disinclined to read it. This is spite of my enjoyment of ghost stories and Barbara Michaels' other work. (N.B. I love my mom, just stupid vestiges of teenage stubbornness I suppose.)

When I first cracked it open I got up to chapter 3 and nothing much had happened; a bad dream, a bit of foreshadowing. This was somehow worse; I knew it was going to get creepy, it was going to happen any page now... But all the (necessary) setup made it easy to put the book down until the next day.

I was right; everything starts hitting the fan soon into show more chapter 4 - and that's where the trouble started for me, because this is a buddy read, and I should be pacing myself, reading small sections to savour and discuss with friends, and I can't put the book down, I have to find out what happens next!! Hot tea was brewed in vain, only to go cold and neglected; by chapter 6 I was firmly of two minds about this book - it was creeptastically gripping and unbelievably condescending and dated in its tone.

As others have noted, Patrick was ...unlikeable. Add to this his behaviour in at least one scene and way too much vagueness pertaining to Ruth's past and I was... unimpressed with our protagonists. Bruce was mostly a pompous git, and Sara was rather vanilla. So while I as still enjoying the story it could go either way for me at this point. I pried myself off the book at the end of chapter 7 and swore I'd not go near it again for at least 24 hours.

I think I made it the 24 hours and I'd like to say I was able to only read a bit more the next day, but that would be crap - I grudgingly went through my to-do list and then sat down with this book and wild horses were not going to part me from it until I finished. I had to know how it ended.

Oh, Barbara Michaels, you crafty, crafty lady. I see what you did there. You never did explain Ruth's past clearly, but you did explain Patrick's behaviour ever so neatly; I didn't have much justification beyond his name for disliking him after that. I especially liked how you sneaked a bit of sophisticated theology in too when you thought nobody would notice. Clever, and it added a tiny bit of heft to the story without beating the reader over the head. Nice.

There's no way anyone who has ever read any ghost story couldn't divine at least some of the ending, but I'll admit my sub-conscious predictions fell short: it was more complex than I had foreseen, which of course made it all the better. As to what finally felled the evil, well, that showed a complexity of theological belief that I don't see much in my spooky reads and I respect Michaels all the more because of it.

All in all an excellent ghost story and one I wouldn't want to read - or re-read - after dark; I'm fairly certain it would scare the bejeezus out of me.

I jest, but the worst part of the book is probably the part where I have to call mom and say: you were right! ;-) show less

Barbara Michaels' books are a guilty pleasure of mine. I love to read them when it is October, or raining in fall and spring. There is just something cozy about them that you can read under a blanket with a cup of tea. I own most of her books written as Michaels, and all are well worn and well-loved paperbacks.
I did not have Ammie Come Home, so I borrowed it from the library. The copy I received was a dull gray, library bound without a cover picture. It was so old looking and the pages so soft. I think these tactile qualities helped transport me back to the time when this book was first published, in 1968.
You could really tell that this book was written and published in the 60s. There were references to hippies, protests, show more stereotypical gender roles, miniskirts, and smoking. I think it was all the casual smoking that really struck me; Ruth is portrayed as a distinguished, demure woman in her 50s or so, and she was always lighting up. A cigarette here, a cigarette before bed, I am not sure why this seemed so odd to me but it did. I don’t think I have really read anything lately where the main character smokes. It just was out of character to me; I feel now smoking is used as a device to show a character is flawed, rebellious, or quirky, and Ruth was none of those things. Despite all this, I thought the fact that the book was from the perspective of a slightly older woman, and had an element of romance for her too, was pretty forward thinking.
Like all good ghost stories, this one starts with a séance. I have an irrational fear of séances and Ouija boards, thanks to the Exorcist. Ammie Come Home was no different in that regard – a séance served as a doorway for the supernatural. And this story was pretty “spooktacular”. There were a few parts where I got the creepy crawlies from reading it even. There were all sorts of ghostly activity – apparitions, possession (which the book called shadowing), a creepy bodiless voice, and things falling over. Selling the house was out of the question. So what to do? Solve the mystery of course! I love books that are collegiate, with lots of references to classes, people studying classic subjects minutely and specifically, and the characters in this book were college professors and students, and when presented with a mystery, started researching heavily in libraries and books.
This book is the first in the Georgetown Series – I have actually read the second and third and really liked them. It was nice to see the origins of Pat and Ruth, who make appearances in the other books. I find these books perfect for the blustery weather of fall, when I can get cuddly on the couch and be really lazy. And you will have to read to find out about Ammie. show less

Barbara Michaels' books are a guilty pleasure of mine. I love to read them when it is October, or raining in fall and spring. There is just something cozy about them that you can read under a blanket with a cup of tea. I own most of her books written as Michaels, and all are well worn and well-loved paperbacks.
I did not have Ammie Come Home, so I borrowed it from the library. The copy I received was a dull gray, library bound without a cover picture. It was so old looking and the pages so soft. I think these tactile qualities helped transport me back to the time when this book was first published, in 1968.
You could really tell that this book was written and published in the 60s. There were references to hippies, protests, stereotypical show more gender roles, miniskirts, and smoking. I think it was all the casual smoking that really struck me; Ruth is portrayed as a distinguished, demure woman in her 50s or so, and she was always lighting up. A cigarette here, a cigarette before bed, I am not sure why this seemed so odd to me but it did. I don’t think I have really read anything lately where the main character smokes. It just was out of character to me; I feel now smoking is used as a device to show a character is flawed, rebellious, or quirky, and Ruth was none of those things. Despite all this, I thought the fact that the book was from the perspective of a slightly older woman, and had an element of romance for her too, was pretty forward thinking.
Like all good ghost stories, this one starts with a séance. I have an irrational fear of séances and Ouija boards, thanks to the Exorcist. Ammie Come Home was no different in that regard – a séance served as a doorway for the supernatural. And this story was pretty “spooktacular”. There were a few parts where I got the creepy crawlies from reading it even. There were all sorts of ghostly activity – apparitions, possession (which the book called shadowing), a creepy bodiless voice, and things falling over. Selling the house was out of the question. So what to do? Solve the mystery of course! I love books that are collegiate, with lots of references to classes, people studying classic subjects minutely and specifically, and the characters in this book were college professors and students, and when presented with a mystery, started researching heavily in libraries and books.
This book is the first in the Georgetown Series – I have actually read the second and third and really liked them. It was nice to see the origins of Pat and Ruth, who make appearances in the other books. I find these books perfect for the blustery weather of fall, when I can get cuddly on the couch and be really lazy. And you will have to read to find out about Ammie. show less

This haunting book is nearly perfectly written. Foreshadowing, likeable characters, real romance, detective work (pre-Google research!), and the ghost story kept my attention. The Kindle version kept seducing me into reading "just one more chapter because it is only 11 minutes" until I suddenly had to scramble to get ready for work. But the book was finished, so all was well in my world.

And yes, I ordered the next two books in the trilogy.

3.5 stars

Ruth lives in an old house in Georgetown (Washington, DC) that’s been in her family for generations. Her (adult) niece, Sara, is staying with her. When they have a séance, though, something odd happens, particularly to Sara. There is some history to this house (and to their family) that neither Ruth nor Sara knew about. Their mutual partners, Pat and Bruce, try to help them figure out what is going on and how to get rid of whatever entity has been awakened by the séance.

This was published in the 1960s, so any research they did was done the “old-fashioned” way. I didn’t like Pat at all (no idea what Ruth saw in him), nor really any of the characters, nor many of their interactions (particularly man-woman interactions show more and dialogue), and maybe much of that can be attributed to the times (well, the characters’ interactions, anyway… not necessarily their personalities). I did find myself more interested as the book continued on. It turns out this is a trilogy (maybe just based on the location?) – I was originally thinking I might not continue, but on reading the synopsis of the next one, I just might. show less