Contest is closed! Winner announced HERE!
Today I’m hosting the Haunted London Blog Tour Day 10 for the amazing author Leanna Renee Hieber. I read and reviewed her amazing book, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, back in July. You can read it HERE.
From the back cover:
What fortune awaited sweet, timid Percy Parker at Athens Academy? Considering how few of Queen Victoria’s Londoners knew of it, the great Romanesque fortress was dreadfully imposing, and little could Percy guess what lay inside. She had never met the powerful and mysterious Professor Alexi Rychman, knew nothing of the growing shadow, the Ripper and other supernatural terrors against which his coterie stood guard. She knew simply that she was different, haunted, with her snow-white hair, pearlescent skin and uncanny gifts. But this arched stone doorway offered a portal to a new life, an education far from the convent—and an invitation to an intimate yet dangerous dance at the threshold of life and death….
The Strangely Beautiful Haunted London Blog Tour Day 10!
Thank you, Jess, for allowing the Haunted Tour to roll into your fine blog, you were one of my earliest reviews, and such a glowing one at that, it's something I'll never forget.
The Ten Bells – 84 Commercial Street, E1 “Jack the Ripper’s Local”
For those of you just joining us, the purpose of this Haunted tour is to celebrate the release of my Gothic Victorian fantasy debut, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker. This Tour will introduce you to some of the real, documented London haunts who “ghost-star” in my book. When Professor Alexi Rychman and his Guard of spectral police make their rounds, it is to any number of London phantasms. Since these characters are familiar to The Guard, I don’t get to tell their full story in the book, here I can give them their due. Leave a comment and you’ll be entered to win a signed copy of the novel, first in the Strangely Beautiful series!
Today we discuss the haunted Ten Bells, said to be a favourite of Jack the Ripper.
In the early hours of November 9th 1888 Mary Kelly left The Ten Bells pub. Later, across the street from the pub, in Miller’s Court, off Dorset Street, a body nearly unrecognizable as a human female was found, mutilated beyond all recognition. It was thought perhaps the killer followed her from The Ten Bells and into Miller’s Court.
Numerous live-in staff in the upper stories of the Ten Bells told fearsome tales of being awoken by dread in the middle of the night only to find a spectre of an old man dressed in 19th Century clothing lying beside them! Many people saw him, no one was quite sure who he was until in the year 2000, an antique metal box was found hidden in a corner of the cellar. Inside were the effects of George Roberts, along with a press cutting that spoke of his being murdered (with an axe) at a Welsh cinema. A man named George Roberts had kept The Ten Bells in the transition between the 19th and 20th centuries and it was assumed the ghost was the former pub owner.
While Mary Kelly doesn’t get the time and full homage she deserves in my book, as her death comes right near the climax of the novel, her death is mentioned in The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker as such:
The air was sick. A virulent force was tearing through the streets toward a specific destination, ready for a reckoning. It growled and roiled and cut a path like a whirl of ancient blades. Its casualty would be an unspeakable shame. Neither Alexi nor his cohorts had any inkling that there would be another mutilated corpse in the morning, nor that this would be the worst.
There would be nothing, when all was said and done, to ever suggest that this woman, torn utterly to pieces, had once been a human being. The Ripper had struck again, swiping ferocious, merciless, unthinkable paws down Dorset Street, en route to the evening’s festivities.
I’m indebted to Richard Jones, founder of the fabulous Discovery Walks of London and author of the fantastic compendium “Haunted London” and “Walking Haunted London” published by Barnes & Noble Books, a main resource for my research.
Visit him at www.haunted-london.com.
Come visit me at www.leannareneehieber.com to find out more about The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker and follow along on the rest of the Haunted London Blog tour! While you're at my website, if you have a copy of my book why don't you enter my CONTEST? I hope you’ll love this book as much as I loved writing it!
Be sure to comment to be entered to win a signed copy!
Blessings!
Leanna Renee Hieber
www.leannareneehieber.com
www.twitter.com/leannarenee
Leanna is an awesome author. If you haven’t picked up a copy of this yet then you must! Start out here by commenting to be entered into the signed copy from Leanne Renee Hieber. One entry per person. You have until 9/2 to enter!
Don’t forget to follow along on the tour! There’ll be more chances to win this amazing book!
Here’s the very cool book trailer too!
Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson, Book 3)
