Haunted Canada 11: Frightening True Tales

Joel A. Sutherland is magic in my opinion. Not only did he start off the pandemic by going viral with his family re-enacting “The Simpsons” opening credits (check Youtube if interested), his books are now becoming available in America and being translated into French. What he is capable of as a writer is absolutely marvelous. He has yet again delivered something deliciously macabre with these 22 new stories about haunting across the country of Canada, but, even better, he has managed to keep the “Haunted Canada” series fresh and highly readable for 11 volumes. The 22 stories are exciting and, best of all, super creepy. Sutherland’s skills as a writer are formidable as these tales are just short vignettes, but still they stay with you and allow your imagination to really go wild, and, for me, that is the clincher and a really good reason to keep reading. What he does seems very simple but is, in fact, very complex and really creates for riveting reading. As with my last review of Haunted Canada 9: Scary True Canada, I read this book in one sitting, and the stories keep returning to my mind and giving me chills up my spine.

Not only are Sutherland’s readers being scared silly – they are also learning about Canadian geography, historical sites, and history in addition to the different types of ghosts and haunting that can occur. The best part is that readers will have no idea that they are learning as the core of the stories is always the haunting and the apparitions. Highlights include: “The St. Onge Poltergeist” (p. 7) about a family that moves into a haunted house with one particularly infested room, “Murder in the Basement” (p. 38) about a haunted house where someone has been tragically murdered in the basement and is still lingering there, and “The Woman in the Window” (p. 103) about a police officer who sees a ghost in Colborne Lodge in High Park, Toronto.

Sutherland has reached number 11 in the “Haunted Canada” series, and I, for one, truly hope that there are enough hauntings left across Canada that he can achieve getting to 13 volumes for this series. That number may be unlucky for some, but, for Sutherland, I think that it would be a great number upon which perhaps to end the series.