Haunted Asheville

Asheville, NC, is a beautiful place. It is larger and more sophisticated than the hills-'n-hollers locales to the west, moving towards the Smokies (and is certainly more Cosmopolitan than the fictional "Mayberry" of Andy and Opie mystique), yet itrefuses...for the time being...to give up that "small town" ambience and friendliness it still possesses in exchange for "big-city cynical cool". Much of the famous charm still remains. Some quirkiness, too. Asheville is the only place where I have ever seen...at one location and in one single building...a combination funeral home and taxidermy shop. And Asheville has its ghosts. The Pink Lady of the Grove Park Inn has long-term regional renown, and since the internet spreads information around so thoroughly and quickly, her reputation is undoubtedly more widespread now. She has probably gone "national' by now and is "up there' in prominence with South Carolina's "Grey Man", Chicago's "Resurrection Mary", and a few others. In "Haunted Asheville", local resident Joshua P. Warren (a dedicated ghosthunter/paranormalist and writer) has done a good job of covering the traditions and over-the-years sighting accounts of this intriguing phantom. Through his own scientific researches and the accumulative weight of the witness testimony (plus the reliability of that testimony), it is a pretty safe bet that there IS a "pink lady" haunt at Grove Park...and likely some others. The one annoying aspect to this puzzle-in-pink is the curious lack of anything substantial as to a HISTORICITY for the haunting. It is SAID that this was a young woman who either fell, or jumped (or was pushed or thrown?) from several floors up into the open Palm Court of the inn...."sometime in the 1920s". Well WHEN? 1924? 1927? 1929? And what was her name? And where was she from? Or did this happen in the 1930s instead? Surely there must have been newspaper coverage, police reports,a coroners' report, death certificate, hotel records? SOMETHING?Asheville, even then, was NOT "Possum Holler". It had a city and county governmental structure (for which read "bureaucrats"...and bureacracy LIVES for PAPERWORK), and it had news media. And believe me, if a well-heeled young woman (and the Grove Park Inn is NOT a cheap flophouse) took a header into the Palm Court, it WOULD make news! So why can't some kind of "hard data" be found here? Surely it exists somewhere. But let's not fault Joshua P. Warren on this, though. His book is a "reading tour" of Asheville ghost haunts (always did love that particular pun). It isn't an in-depth examination of the Pink Lady. He covers what he needs to cover within the set scope of his book and does it well. Somebody NEEDS to try digging into the background story of this haunting, to be sure, but that wasn't Warren's brief for "Haunted Asheville". From Grove Park we go to the "Battle mansion",the old WLOS television offices/studios and learn about "Alice",the resident hanger-on there. We also encounter murde

One of the best books on the paranormal and ghosts that I've ever read. I'm not sure where the other "reviewer" was coming from, but the information in Warren's book is first rate and detailed. I've been to one of his annual Paranormal Conferences held each January at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville where the Pink Lady ghost appears, and the weekend was great. If people are expecting hokey fake pictures of ghosts that are made with a computer graphics program, then this book isn't for them. If they want great information, a scientific viewpoint combined with great storytelling, and a down-to-earth approach to unknown phenomena, then by all means get a copy of this and Warren's other books. Highly recommended.

This book is a wonderful collection of stories and investigations from haunted locations in Asheville NC. The beautiful Grove Park Inn receives the most time in the book and tells the story about the now famous Pink Lady. The book also takes you to different places in Asheville and the surrounding areas and tells you about the ghosts that reside there. This is not one of the ghost books that tells you old ghost stories that seem to be unrealistic, or extremely embellished. This book is in depth, informative, and much more amazing than any other book on ghosts I have ever read. Except no imitations. I have seen other books that have recently been published using a similar view of a few of the stories included in Haunted Asheville, but none compare to this amazing book. Thanks Joshua P. Warren for making this wonderful book. And be sure to get your hands on a copy of his book slated for 2003, "How to Hunt Ghosts, a Practical Guide" this should be the number one ghost book ever published

I purchased the book to read about the Grove Park Inn Pink Lady, because I had a ghost experience at my stay there. The stories were great but towards the end of the book was slow. But I enjoyed it.

This book is a wonderfully written, thorougly entertaining book of great ghost stories. The stories are told in a very compelling, "Page-Turning" way. The first time I read the book I finished it during a 2 hour flight. It is reread around the time of Halloween at my home and has become a "tradition". We love the book!