Location: United States
Member Since: Jan. 06, 2012

Avo Uvesian

Smashwords book reviews by Avo Uvesian

  • Lowcountry Ghosts: Stories of Alice Flagg, Confederate Blockade Runners, and Haunted Beads on March 15, 2012

    These three stories need to be retold in a recorded book with the South Carolina drawls of sweet Miss Genevieve and Cousin Corrie. These gentile, southern ladies were once masters at ghost-story-telling at the Brookgreen Gardens in Merrells Inlet, South Carolina. Lynn Michelson does and excellent job of passing on their ghostly legends. I wonder if the spirits of Genevieve and Corrie don't pleasantly haunt those gardens still? Each ghost story contains details from South Carolina lowcountry history. A map is provide for those who aren't familiar with that part of the country. Michelsohn does more to bring the stories alive when she concludes and personalizes the book by describing her own experiences visiting Brookstone Gardens. I enjoyed the author's writing here as much as I did in the ghost stories. "In those simpler days, visitors to Brookgreen Gardens turned off the narrow pavement of Highway 17, the King's Highway, onto two parallel ribbons of concrete spaced far enough apart to support the wheels of a car. Visitors drove slowly along those concrete ribbons through the wooded deer park. . . . (p. 28) "After a leisurely stroll through the Live Oak Allee, with perhaps a detour into the Palmetto Garden, a peek inside the Old Kitchen, and a dip of the fingers into the cool water of the Alligator Bender Pool,. . ." (p. 28) "I. . . enjoyed playing hide-and seek among sun-dappled sculptures and looking for painted river turtles sleeping on logs that floated in the old rice field swamps. I loved darting from the shelter of one live oak canopy to the next during summer showers." (p. 29) Ms. Michelsohn perceives her surroundings with the eye of a talented writer. This suggests that she has the ability to write fiction that could pull the reader right into the story and setting. It also suggests that an autobiography could provide an very appealing read.