The extensive website www.paranormaldatabase.com has just given very positive reviews to both Haunted Dundee and Paranormal Cumbria.

I was particularly pleased that the reviewer singled out the quality of the bibliographies:

“One of my old college lecturers once joked that if he had his way, the grade of any publication would be based on the size of the bibliography. Using this method alone would guarantee Haunted Dundee came top of the class, and fortunately Geoff Holder’s writing style ensures he deserves to be there.”

As I tend to bang on about the deficiencies of many paranormal books when it comes to their ‘critical apparatus’ – bibliographies, references, indexes and so on – it’s pleasing to find that someone else shares my opinion that proper books deserve proper documentation within their pages. In many cases, the phrase “no bibliography or index” sends a chill down my spine, as all-too-often it carries the unstated implication: “the book under review is a pile of poo…”

As for Paranormal Cumbria, www.paranormaldatabase.com states:

“Each paranormal field is written about in an honest, no nonsense style that applies an Occam’s razor approach – many paranormal writers could learn from this.”

I use Occam’s razor every morning. It makes for a nice, clean shave. (Hey, I can do endorsements if I so wish.)

You can see the reviews at and they are also here and here. My thanks to Darren Mann for permission to reproduce the reviews.