"In Haints, Arthur Redding examines the work of contemporary American authors who draw on the gothic tradition in their fiction, not as frivolous or supernatural entertainments, but to explore and memorialize the ghosts of their heritage. Ghosts, Redding argues, serve as lasting witnesses to the legacies of slaves and indigenous peoples whose stories were lost in the remembrance or mistranslation of history. No matter how much Americans willingly or unwillingly repress the true history of their ancestry, their ghosts remain unburied and restless. Such authors as Toni Morrison and Leslie Marmon Silko deploy the ghost as a means of reconciling their own violently repressed heritage with their identity as modern Americans. And just as our ancestors were haunted by ghosts of the past, today we are haunted by ghosts of contemporary crises: urban violence, racial hatred, and even terrorism. In other cases that Redding studies--such as James Baldwin's The Evidence of Things Not Seen and Toni Cade Bambara's Those Bones Are Not My Child--writers address similar crises to challenge traditional American claims of innocence and justice. Finally, Redding argues that ghosts emphasize a growing worry about a larger impending crisis: the apocalypse. Yet the despair the apocalypse inspires is vital to providing the grounds for new solutions to modern issues. In the end, the armies of the dispossessed enlist the forces of the spirit world to create a better future--by ensuring that mistakes of the past are not repeated, that Americans do not deny their heritage, and that accountability exists for any given crisis."--book jacket.

Even the Spider can’t escape a ghost’s web . . . I’m being haunted. As Gin Blanco, aka the assassin the Spider, I’m used to being haunted by all the bad things I’ve done over the years. I suppose it was only a matter of time before an actual ghost came back to haunt me. But for once, I’m not the bad guy, and I wasn’t the person who sent this ghost—this haint—into the afterlife. But this haint definitely wants something from me, and I can’t help but think that it’s revenge on the person responsible for her untimely demise. Good thing revenge is my specialty, whether it’s among the living or the dead . . . Note:Haints and Hobwebsis an 11,000-word story that takes place after the events of Tangled Threads, book 4 in the Elemental Assassinurban fantasy series. Haints and Hobwebsfirst appeared in The Mammoth Book of Ghost Romancein 2012.

Ruth Stump loses her baby in childbirth. Granny offers her a newborn, unwanted by its mother, but tells Ruth, “If you take this baby, you gotta swear you won’t tell a soul he ain’t yours...ever. If you tell, you could cause this baby...and you great harm.” Ruth takes the baby but wonders: Has God opened a door? Or is the devil laughing at her? Fifteen years later, the local preacher accuses Ruth’s son, Tommy, and his friend Cassie Yocum, of witchery. Black cats are hangin’ dead from trees, haints are roaming the woods, the fearsome cry of the Banshee is echoing through the hollows. And Tommy’s pa has disappeared. Tommy must find his pa and destroy the real evil before he loses his family and his home.

When African slaves were brought to the American South to work the plantations, they brought with them their culture, traditions, and religion—including what came to be called voodoo. This unique blend of Christianity, herbalism, and folk magic is still practiced in South Carolina's Lowcountry. Though a beginners guide, Lowcountry Voodoo offers a surprising wealth of information about this fascinating part of Lowcountry life. Learn about: the Gullah and their ways how to bring good luck and avoid bad luck spells and curses and how to avoid them how to cook up traditional good-luck meals for New Years Day a real voodoo village you can visit sweetgrass baskets events and tours to acquaint you with Lowcountry culture. In a selection of Lowcountry tales that feature voodoo, meet: a boo hag bride who sheds her skin at night Dr. Buzzard, the most famous root doctor a giant ghost dog a young man whose love potion worked too well George Powell, who outwitted a haint Crook-Neck Dick, who (mostly) outwitted a hangman Doctor Trott, who captured a mermaid.

"The Broken Sword; Or, A Pictorial Page in Reconstruction" by D. Worthington is a novel set in the particular period of American history from 1865 till 1877. The government of the South by carpet-baggers was essentially oppressive and inquisitorial. It was, in its practical operation, a pure and unadulterated despotism, superseding the protection guaranteed by the Federal Constitution to each and every State. It was under the dominion of organized anarchy, with legislatures and courts of justice, subordinated to a lawless assemblage of unprincipled men calling themselves the representatives and judges of the people. Among its necessarily implied powers was that of confiscation, and numbered in its enumeration of brutalities, was a nameless crime that shocked the moral sense of mankind. Reconstruction came upon the South with fearful impulse.