The Ghosts of the Allen House - A Haunted Love Story

I was really skeptical about buying this book but for $1.99, I figured why not? I quickly found myself unable to put it down. The history, mystery, strange events in the house and love story kept me intrigued. I honestly felt as if I were right there in the house with the writer. I'm hoping to find another book like this one that is a great read!

I was excited to read this book for several reasons. My daughter knows the author and I am very interested in ghosts and the scientific proof of them. It is well written and very "haunting" long after you finish reading it. It is very interesting that they are still documenting occurances!

This is a well-written book filled with historical information and treasured "finds". The credibility of the author and his own personal thoughts and experiences can persuade even the most skeptical to believe.

I just finished Mark's book A Haunted Love Story!!! Is was so awesome!!! Every time I had to stop to do something I would find myself trying to get it done so that I could get back to the book!!! I really loved his book and I fell in love with the history of The Allen House and all for the spritis in it!!! I found the book so addictive that I want to know more about The Allen House and it's spritis!!! This is one of the best books I have ever read!!!

The reviews actually led me to buy this book. The book was just ok though. The story was not particularly compelling, although the writing was not bad (some books in this genre have terrible, immature writing). It was more of a romance rather than anything paranormal. It's a fast read.

Mark Spencer's "A Haunted Love Story--Ghosts of the Allen House" is a terrific page turner. I couldn't put it down and when I finished it my wife, Ellen, uncharacteristically, grabbed the book from me and couldn't put it down either till she'd finished it. This extremely well written non-fiction novel tells the incredible true story of a love affair perpetuated by the ghosts of the Allen House. I can't wait for the movie! When the world finds out about Mark Spencer's beautiful book, it will hit the top of all best seller lists.

As far as writing goes, it's pretty easy reading. I have the kindle edition, so don't know how many pages this book is but it seemed to be rather short. What I noticed pretty quickly is that the author never really explains exactly WHY he and his wife just HAD to have this house, so this leaves the conclusion up to the reader. My conclusion--I believe they bought it in order to exploit its being haunted. They knew this ahead of time yet they pursued it anyway. Why would anyone expose their children to this? And when their son started acting oddly, they just shrugged it off. Oh, please! And the author kept saying, after every strange event, that he was "skeptical." Hard to believe.

As far as the haunting and history of the house, it's basically a laundry list of what happened, without much depth or emotion attached to it.

If you are looking for some light entertainment, it's fine, but I still question the author's motive buying this house in the first place. Just quite can't get past that.

Based on other reviews, I was looking forward to reading this book. It started off great. In the middle (IMHO) the story went slowly downhill. The story about the romance letters back and forth were boring, I never finished the book. I thought the story would have been more about the Ghosts haunting the house. This story just didn't hold my interest.

Review
A Haunted Love Story - The Ghosts of the Allen House by Mark Spencer. (227 pgs, Llewellyn Worldwide).

I have read all of Spencer's other published books - novels and short story collections, and have found no better description of him than the one the Boston Globe coined in pronouncing him the "Bruce Springsteen of fiction." He writes with beauty and respect about real people even though he's been, up till now, making it up.
As a professor of creative writing specializing in creative nonfiction, part of me was overjoyed that Spencer was now publishing a book in this genre - actually two as a volume on Arkansas history was recently released - and I anticipated its arrival in my mailbox with great happiness.
Whether you believe the supernatural aspects or not is secondary to the pleasure of reading the book. My other scholarly interest is gender studies, and the indisputable fact is that Spencer discovered the correspondence between Ladell Allen and her married lover in the attic of his historic home in Monticello, Arkansas and solved the mystery of what prompted Ladell's suicide over sixty years earlier in the master suite. The tender exchanges, the cultural stigma, the sheer logistics of their affair is heartbreakingly rendered through Spencer's gifted evocation of their relationship via exquisitely chosen excerpts of the actual letters and his painstakingly perfect research of the history. I was heartbroken over the fact that Ladell felt driven to this alternative trying to gain the attention of her married lover.
The romance between the two transports the reader to another time, when lovers were reduced to hand written letters and waited six days for those precious pages to appear with words of devotion. My heart went out to Ladell who was trying so hard to impress her lover. She auditions with all the attributes society valued in a wife in 1948. She mentioned cooking and he replied: "So you can cook too. I think that is wonderful. I am really a cake eater and have been all my life. Will you bake a cake for me sometime?"
The tale is so perfectly rendered that I do not think I could bear to see their love come to such utter destruction if not for the parallel love story inherent in the text. The story of Ladell and Prentiss, her lover, is carefully braided with the strands of Spencer and his wife Rebecca's lives. The couple moves to Arkansas when Spencer accepts a position as Dean of Arts and Humanities at the University of Arkansas in Monticello and they are immediately drawn to the historic Allen house, undertaking quite a journey to purchase it from the previous owner. On an early drive past the house, and noting that in its run down condition they could buy it cheap, Rebecca asked him to pull up to the curb for a closer look. Of that event, Spencer writes:
I did as she asked. The house was on her side of the car. While she looked up at the wreck, I noticed the old but well-kept house across the street. I admired the nicely trimmed yard and what looked like a fresh paint job. This is what we need, I said to myself. I was about to say so to Rebecca, but when I looked over at her and saw the way she was gazing at the rundown Victorian, I looked up at it myself. From the street, it again appealed to me the way it had the first time I saw it. Massive and convoluted, but also elegant. It was a lovely ruin, rich in character, and in desperate need of care.
Rebecca was apparently thinking the same thing I was. She said, "It needs us."
That passage and others like it characterizes the relationship of Spencer and his lovely wife Rebecca. I could not help wishing as I read the book that Ladell and Prentiss could have lived sixty years later in a society that would not have condemned them for finding love later in life. I wanted them to have what the author portrays with his wife. I am still broken-hearted about Ladell, but that pain is tempered by the happiness implicit in the parallel relationship of Spencer and his wife.
The paranormal aspects of the story are painstakingly documented and presented objectively. Spencer admits to being a skeptic himself. I don't know what I am at this point. If Ladell wanted the right person to tell her story, she found him. If you believe that, you will adore this book. If you don't, well, the story still got told. It is a beautiful story worth reading, and the memory of it haunts my imagination.

Mark Spencer's "A Haunted Love Story: The Ghosts of the Allen House" is not quite your typical horror/ghost story. The tale is part autobiographical & part non-fiction as he explores the history of the famous Allen House in Monticello, Arkansas which he himself has lived in for the past 5 years. There is a nice mixture of the struggles he had obtaining the house & also of trying to fend off people who wanted to visit this haunted residence. However, the gem in the tale is the story that leads to why the house is haunted. Spencer does an above average job with that piece of the tale & also includes pictures of the actual Allen House where he resides. This is definitely not your average book on a lot of different genres & is also something quite enjoyable to read whether you're looking for a good ghost story or love story, this book is worth the money.

This is a well documented 'tragic' love story told through letters discovered in an attic. The hauntings described were few and far between, so, if you're looking for a scary haunted house book....move on. This was a melancholy story with a sad ending.....basically a sad life. The house/architecture was very interesting from the historical perspective. If you want the be-jesus scared out of you....read 'The Black Hope Horror'. If you want romance, history and piece of southern life in the 1940's, this might be the one.