Guest Post by Stuart R. West, Author of GHOSTS OF GANNAWAY

By: Meradeth Houston on 4:00 AM

Okay, can someone please tell me how it's managed to get to July already? Pause the summer, someone, please! It can't go by this fast! Well, if you happen to be in the mood for a great summer read, look no further. Today we're talking ghost towns with the awesome Stuart R. West, author of GHOSTS OF GANNAWAY.

Ghosts of Gannaway available here!

My wife grew up in Oklahoma, her family still lives there. So we venture across the Midwest often to 

visit. When we first passed through Picher, Oklahoma, my jaw nearly hit the floorboards. A shell-shocked town, broken down, uninhabitable. Sad and haunting. I had to know more. Turns out the saga of Picher was more haunting than I’d ever imagined.

All of the buildings were destroyed, windows and walls blown out, some reduced to mere foundations. Evocative graffiti painted the walls, some threats, some scrawlings that raised the hair on my neck. “Beware you who enter…” Yikes.

I got out of the car, took some pictures. Apparently, a few people still lived there but I didn’t stick around too long to make friends. Whenever I see Confederate flags flying, hanging on burned out low income housing, I tend not to want to linger. Lots of rifle racks on display, too.

Picher had been a once prosperous mining town. In the ‘30’s, it was one of the biggest suppliers of lead and zinc in the country, a gold rush of booming activity. But now it was a dead town in more ways than one. The few residents still living there were called “chat rats,” people reduced to the bare minimum of civility, living the ways of the old west with very little laws in existence. The air and water had become contaminated, deadly and polluted. And looming over it all were the mountains of chat piles, the earth’s inner waste brought to the surface to poison the world. A monument to man’s greed and wonton destruction of the earth.

Picher is now the oldest and largest environmental Superfund site in America.

So I researched. I found a story buried in sadness, grief, violence and racism. A story of burgeoning unions and Native-American issues. I learned more about mining than I ever thought I’d know. And the book, Ghosts of Gannaway, was born. Of course I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I added thrills, chills, scares, moving statues, ghosts, murder, bad behavior. Topped it off with a love story that transcends decades and mortality. The book alternates timelines between 1935 and 1969. It’s complicated. And was a bear to write! But I think it paid off. The book still gets under my skin.

I hope it will yours, as well. In the best kind of sense, of course!

Ghost whispers echo through the mines of Gannaway. They have a story to tell. It’s the story of a town torn apart by greed, pollution and vanity, by racial discord between the Native Americans and the invading miners, by the Great Depression, by the violent union strikes of the 1930’s. That’s not all that brought Gannaway to its knees, though. Not by a long shot. Because something—else—lives in the deserted tunnels of the mine, something dark and evil. Something that breathes life into the Ghosts of Gannaway.

Ghost whispers echo through the mines of Gannaway. They have a story to tell. It’s the story of a town torn apart by greed, pollution and vanity, by racial discord between the Native Americans and the invading miners, by the Great Depression, by the violent union strikes of the 1930’s. That’s not all that brought Gannaway to its knees, though. Not by a long shot. Because something—else—lives in the deserted tunnels of the mine, something dark and evil. Something that breathes life into the Ghosts of Gannaway. (Goodreads)

Ghosts of Gannaway takes the reader on a journey they won’t forget. ~ Paranormal Suspense Writer Gail Roughton

Ghosts of Gannaway available here!

My Review:

I am a huge fan of West's work and have to say he's outdone himself with Ghosts of Gannaway. I had a chance to read an early draft and found myself unable to put it down and it haunted me for days after I'd finished it. It is a superb story that interweaves in the best possible way, leaving the reader guessing and completely unable to stop reading. I love how the story unfolds with bits of the past twining with the present, the stories coming together to explain some horrific events, but also a story of humanity. If you enjoy a great story, with a mystery that's sure to leave you a little a haunted, this is definitely a book to not miss!