HOW THE BOOKS BEGAN

by Jacob Floyd

Jenny and I are ghost hunters who own and operate two historic ghost walks in the Louisville, Kentucky area, and we are the authors of two paranormal nonfiction books—Louisville’s Strange and Unusual Haunts and Kentucky’s Haunted Mansions. How does someone get into such a hobby, you might ask? It’s something you have to have been interested in for a while, either just out of pure curiosity or because you’ve had unexplainable incidents of your own, both of which ring true for us.

Jenny and I both have had our share of paranormal experiences since we’ve been together and before we knew each other. But, to go into all of that would certainly take some time. It will suffice here for us to talk about how exactly our foray into writing the paranormal evolved.

In late 2015, Jenny and I started getting into ghost hunting. At first, we referred to ourselves as paranormal investigators, but later determined the term “ghost hunter” better suited us. While we certainly agree that scientific approaches are excellent ways to get involved with the field, we do not claim to be scientists. There is no denying science can explain many things, and that one day the paranormal may be a true branch of science if certain discoveries are made. We also believe that parapsychology has many answers, too. A lot of the theories involving residual energy and human energy producing certain phenomena that people have attributed to ghosts are certainly plausible explanations. But, also, we believe there are metaphysical explanations that need to be taken into account. As vast as the universe is, there are a lot of things we have yet to understand, and there are numerous theories about separate realities, planes of existences, parallel universes, and other space and spirit related ideas. So, why not the possibility of human energy surviving after the body has ceased functioning? You have to keep an open mind when dealing with the paranormal, whether you’re a believer or a skeptic, if you want to be credible. But, we like “ghost hunters” because that’s actually what we we’re doing: looking for ghosts or ghost stories.

So, in the beginning, Jenny and I were taking our cameras, meters, recorders, and spirit box out to various locations said to be haunted. We visited a few spots with a veteran ghost hunter, including the old poor farm in Scottsburg, Indiana, but our first real investigation came at the Old Stone Jail in Shepherdsville, Kentucky. We had some interesting experiences, which will be discussed later in another project we are currently working on. Since then, we have had many interesting experiences, including an intelligent spirit box response at the statue of Harry Collins in Cave Hill, a possible picture of the Lady in Blue at Louisville’s Seelbach Hotel, a strange white apparition moving through Eastern Cemetery, just to name a few.

But, investigating the history of the Old Stone Jail led us on a path to finding out that there is a lot of interesting history and alleged haunts and legends in the historic area of Downtown Shepherdsville. After finding out so many captivating stories, we decided to start our first ghost walk—Jacob Floyd’s Shepherdsville History and Haunts Tour. It got a lot of great feedback, and we ended up with people coming to us with more information. Eventually, we decided it was time to write a book about Kentucky haunts.

When we embarked upon this new project, we decided to start with Louisville. We had heard tales of a few haunted places, but as we called around we began getting a lot of information about East Market Street, in the neighborhood that is now called NuLu (stretching along East Market from Hancock Street to Baxter Avenue). As we spoke to people down there, we kept getting more stories and we kept getting directed to other individuals who had ghost tales to tell. One of the locations down there is where Jenny did her famous, “Go in there and talk to them. That place feels haunted,” which always—as it did this instance—turns up fascinating and detailed ghost tales from the people who either work, occupy, or own the buildings.

Before we knew it, we had enough information about NuLu haunts that we had developed another tour—one that has, much like Shepherdsville, been met with a lot of positive feedback—called Jacob Floyd’s NuLu History and Haunts Tour. This one is not quite as scenic or historic as Shepherdsville, but has more ghost stories and legends, which gives an excellent balance to our tours.

Now, with the NuLu tour, the investigations, and other various interviewing, we had enough for our first book—Louisville’s Strange and Unusual Haunts—which we pitched at Imaginarium in 2016 and got accepted. The book was met with a lot of praise from those who read it, and then we decided it was time for our next project, Kentucky’s Haunted Mansions.

This book involved less ghost hunting but a lot more thorough research and some interviewing. There is a personal touch as the first home, the Brooks Plantation, was a family home for Jenny. In contrast to the first book, this one contains a lot of significant Kentucky history on top of the paranormal reports, which is vital to a lot of ghost tales as the history is usually where the haunts come from. Part of ghost hunting is learning about the buildings, the history, the people, the area, and the architecture. You find out a lot of fascinating things and meet a lot of interesting people when digging up ghost stories, which is at least half the fun.

That’s a brief summary of how these two projects came to be for us, and we intend for this to only be the beginning. Currently, we have a few other projects in the works and we hope to be bringing our readers a lot more entertaining ghost stories in the near future.

About the authors: Jacob and Jenny Floyd (also known as The Frightening Floyds) are paranormal authors, ghost hunters, and tour operators from Louisville, Kentucky. Jenny is a sensitive and an empath that has been around the paranormal for years. Jacob Floyd has been a writer and paranormal enthusiast for years and enjoys all things creepy and macabre. They recently began two tours in Kentucky—the Shepherdsville History and Haunts Tour and the NuLu History and Haunts Tour—and have been a part of numerous ghost hunts in graveyards, hotels, and other various buildings. They live in a home surrounded by pets and one possible ghost.

Book Synopsis for Kentucky’s Haunted Mansions:   Kentucky’s Haunted Mansions, from paranormal authors Jacob and Jenny Floyd, will take you into the homes of the dignitaries and luminaries that made Kentucky industrious through business, bureaucracy, and bloodshed. Beyond the rich, sweeping history that these men wrote, there lies the spiritual energy their lives left behind.

Some of these mansions are alleged to be haunted, and many ghostly reports have come out of them. Read about phantoms such as the angry young girl at Griffin Gate to the vanishing cat of the Loudon House. Explore the accounts of the Aging Lady on the stairs at Elmwood and the Creature of the Cross Breeze at Wickland Estate Discover several of the most elegant and haunted homes across the commonwealth.

But rest assured, foolish mortals, there are no hitchhiking ghosts here—that we know of!

Author Links:

https://www.facebook.com/jacobfloydauthor/

Twitter: @AuthorJAFloyd

Amazon.com Links for Kentucky’s Haunted Mansions:

Kindle Version

Print Version

Barnes and Noble Link for Kentucky’s Haunted Mansions