The Horrors of the House of Wills
Daryl Marston
Llewellyn Worldwide (September 8, 2023)
Reviewed by N. Richards
What a little page-turner this one turned out to be!
Daryl Marston is a co-lead investigator on Ghost Hunters: a paranormal investigator with vast knowledge and experience in the field of paranormal research. He also hosts the popular podcast The American Ghost Hunter Show and co-owns the website Paranormal Warehouse. What he has done here is give us the true heart of his most terrifying case to date. You get so much more from reading a book than watching a film or movie. We all get that. It is the same principle at work here, we have all watched the by now huge plethora of psychic investigation, paranormal detective style shows out there; after all YouTube and the mainstream channels are full of them.
Reading the written true account, though! That’s another level we are being taken to right there!
It’s not just about the detailed account of what is by now a haunted location of legendary proportions, The House of Wills in Cleveland, Ohio. It’s also a story about how this whole event changed Daryl’s life, taking him down corridors of sometimes harsh realities and the twists of fate that could never have been without his experiences at the House of Wills. This is an intimate account of what it truly means to work from the passions of the heart.
The 176 pages takes you through Daryl’s formative experiences with the other side and into the main course, which is of course the house itself, an emotional rollercoaster of events that would make even the most jaded amongst us sit up and pay attention awaits within the pages. It feels like it’s written from the heart, and I believe it is. To drag up these memories and experiences and integrate them into your daily waking life really takes some doing. That’s indeed not for the faint-hearted. There are detailed floor plans at the back of the book which are referenced as a clear guide throughout the retelling, along with atmospheric photographs. This all adds to the insight and feeling of being part of the story that can’t be captured in a film or via any modern ghost hunting equipment, but certainly comes to life somehow through art of the written word. Emotionally intelligent and spine chillingly authentic. A must read!
