I like reading up on urban legends and American folklore so I was hopeful this would be a fun, creepy read. Although there are moments that should have been scary, the text was just too dry for it to confer the feelings of spine-tingling fright. The legend was an interesting story but could have been told in a more tangible, relatable way. ( )

4.5 stars

A well written, surprisingly entertaining fictional telling of The Bell Witch Haunting, a poltergeist which was purportedly well documented during the period between 1818 and 1823. The poltergeist drew notoriety and a future U.S. president with its antics and eventually led to the death of John Bell, the head of the family. Told from Richard Powell's, Betsy Bell's future husband, point of view, the story starts with a curse laid on John Bell by a lady named Kate Batts and quickly develops into a story about a young girl and her father tormented by the poltergeist called Old Kate.

The author takes a lot of liberties in his storytelling (and is up front about it on his website), but the basic information conforms to the above Bell Witch site. Looking over the character bios on this site leads me to think that, even given that women did marry early (12 or 13 years old) to men who were often a good deal older (basic economics?), some of the players in the original story were, in fact, just dirty old men. That's the conclusion the author seems to draw any way and I kinda agree. ( )

The book is written as one long chapter without any real breaks which makes it very difficult to read without sitting down and reading it in one sitting. Other than that I only have personal issues with the book and the ending to the story but this is not a reflection on the book or the author. It was a decent read. ( )

The terrible ending ruined any interest in this book I had. Also I am not thrilled that a book touted as being non-fiction (it is not) is not non-fiction. I got this book because it was recommended to me by someone who suggested this for books about ghost stories and haunted houses.

This fictionalized story is told in the first person by Richard Powell. The author, Brent Monahan, takes a first person narrative approach by having Richard Powell address a letter to his daughter to be read after his death and only if his wife, her mother, Betsy Bell Powell seems to become "afflicted."

All of the characters in this book existed. The author took the documented cases of the Bell Witch and tried to turn what happened into a made for tv movie (that would appear on Lifetime) with an older Richard Powell in love with Betsey but heartsick over their age difference and the fact she was in love with a local boy more her age.

I ended up reading a website today that talks about The Bell Witch so I was able to root out certain parts of the story that were fictionalized or the author chose to ignore (Richard Powell was married before he married Betsey) and the fact that many in the community suspected him to be involved with making up The Bell Witch.

I have to say that the writing for the most part was well done, but the author taking turns to note the racist terrible things the supernatural entity that was known as Old Kate and the Bell Witch was off-putting as hell. I don't know if these are actual recorded things the entity supposedly said, but if he made it up to make it sensational, ugh to him. Also certain things have been disproved (General Andrew Jackson did not go to visit the Bell home) and I wonder why the author left them in.

The author included drawings that had been made previously in this book, that added an air of authenticity about it.

The flow to the book wasn't that great, and I think it's because it dragged a ton. Until you almost get to the end of the book, I felt like I was reading the most boring diary ever.

The setting of the Bell Home didn't seem like a real place to me. I think because I had a hard time envisioning the home that they all lived in.

The ending made me sigh and roll my eyes. Based on what came before, the hypothesis of the author doesn't make a lot of sense. And once again the author left out a lot of things about these real life people. ( )

This novel describes most of the significant Bell Witch facts as they have come to stand in American history/legend. The author chose the device of an unknown manuscript that gave inside information on the events of nearly 200 years ago, and took on the stance that this was as much a mystery (a murder mystery, no less) as it was a series of possible supernatural events. I didn't find this novel scary, but I don't know if I was supposed to. My own view is that this notorious case of a haunting witnessed by hundreds (including Andrew Jackson, if legend is correct) contains some unexplained elements but is also one that has grown in the telling over the decades. No one theory covers all elements here but the one that comes closest involves knowing participation by some of the family involved in the supposed poltergeist phenomena that surrounded them. Whatever else this matter was, it became deadly serious and the patriarch of the family did wind up dead, just as the spirit of the "witch" prophesied. More disturbing, true to her word, the witch did appear and she laughed at him at his funeral, as his casket was being lowered into the grave. I have read quite a bit about this disturbing folk history and have heard everything advocated from demonic presences to straightforward trickery. One recent claim was that the girl at the heart of the case was being molested by her father, that the pranks she claimed were a haunting were a cry for help, and that she got her revenge by poisoning her father to death. That may well be. Whatever the explanations are, the Bell Witch of Tennessee certainly deserves to be kept alive in memory, and it makes for a titillating study of the unexplained.

This was one of the best fiction chillers I have read in a long time. You never can quite tell whether it is fiction or fact. Chilling tale with a good twist at the end. ( )