Ghostly Reads
by Cindy Ackley Nunn
So, you like a good ghost story, do you? Get a thrill out of being scared witless? Enjoy that little cold tingle you can feel running up and down your spine while sitting in bed with the lights down low, the book in your hands offering chilling tales of true life hauntings? If that ' s the case I have enough ghostly reads to recommend that will keep you up all night for weeks on end, with the lights on and your security blanket pulled up to your little chinny chin chin.
As the founder of an international paranormal investigations team I was privileged to meet and work with many other interesting people involved in the field. Darren W. Ritson is one of them, and we have maintained a great friendship ever since our first meeting. As you can imagine I also met a lot of people working in paranormal investigations who were less than professional and at times very questionable. Darren was one of the few I came across who investigated and researched with honesty, integrity and a critical eye when analyzing evidence. Over the years he has written prolifically about his experiences in the paranormal field and the things he has personally witnessed. If Darren says it happened, it really did happen. He doesn ' t play mind games and he doesn ' t make things up. For these reasons alone I am more than happy to promote his books, which in my opinion have added legitimacy to the serious pursuit of ghosts and the paranormal. The other reason? I personally love reading his books. Quite often they are imbued with Darren ' s charming sense of humor, while at other times they are quite serious due to the particular content, such as when dealing with the often criticized South Shields Poltergeist case. Darren, and co-author Mike Hallowell, took a lot of serious, and at times quite nasty, flack from skeptics of the paranormal, as well as from others in the field who at one time were considered friends and / or esteemed colleagues. But the reality is that Darren and Mike put in a lot of their own personal time and resources, for free, to help out this family who were being tormented by something unexplainable. Just like one will find in any other field there is a lot of competition, backbiting and disagreement within the paranormal community.
Darren is not afraid to show fear. When he feels an emotion during an investigation he feels no need to hide it. This is a man who I have personally seen run“ full steam ahead” into a door when being chased by a dark shadow form that was witnessed by a large group of people. I have heard him scream like a girl while frantically searching in the darkness for a light switch. Okay, I admit that in this case he wasn ' t scared by anything paranormal and I take full( and joyful) blame at being the one to cause him to scream like a girl, because I set him up with a“ Gotcha!” moment that was truly priceless. We still laugh about it today. But don ' t feel too bad for Darren. He more than got even with me later that night at our haunted location, causing me to scream even louder and run off down the stairs with my arms flailing about in fear. Touché Daz! Good times indeed! Darren is also one of the best to have around to calm others when their fear becomes almost hysterical. At these times, no matter what is happening, he is able to put aside his own feelings of fear or trepidation and reassure the other person that they are safe. There have also been times when he should have been scared but instead was steady as a rock, and like St. George ready to slay the mighty dragon, he waltzed right in to the dark ready to do battle. He ' s a great guy, and an even better writer.
Darren W. Ritson hails from the North East of England. Not only is he a prolific writer of true paranormal and ghostly encounters, he is also highly accomplished in the martial arts, and had the honor of training and fighting at the Kodokan Judo Institute in Tokyo. As if that isn ' t enough, he is also a very talented photographer.
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