I am looking for a specific book and it’s driving me insane. I have searched the usual places and I *still * can’t find it.
Title: Ghosts
Pub Date: between 1970-1990
Author: female that’s real helpful
Type: ** Fiction**
Binding: Hardcover
Cover Art: Dark background, drawing of a baptismal font with butterfly perched on edge
Synopsis: Minnesota girl with “awareness” of spirits grows up and goes to University. Majors in Medieval Studies, meets an English guy who is a visiting lecturer (I’m not sure about the lecturer part) They get married, move to Oxford, England and she starts having weird experiences.** She also falls in love with the ghost of a knight.**
Sound familar to anybody? None of the sites I visited have pictures of the cover art or synopsii that match. I am very definite of all the info I have given. All I need is an author name!
I am hoping you Dopers of eclectic literary tastes can help me out. Please? I’ll buy you a beer. Promise.
Thanks,
G.
P.S. The book is better than it sounds.
I’m not familiar with the book, but I want to wish you lots of luck figuring out who it’s by. As I’ve found out trying to find out who wrote a book by the same title, there are scores of books titled “ghosts.” If I publish a novel, I hope my title is a lot more orginal than that 
(the “Ghosts” I’m looking for is a YA book published before 1991 about a girl and her brother trying to save a ghostly set of children who lived in their home. The kids and the ghosts were on the mostly green cover.)
If you are certain about the data that you have given, the author is most likely to be Marsha Parker.
I narrowed the search down by date, by the fact it is fiction and by the name being female. (I searched the list of names and eliminated males.)
The only three names that I could find for sure are:
Marsha Parker
Ursula Perrin
Eva Figes
The Eva Figes book had a review which described it as almost like a diary, and mentioned none of the plot details you list above.
The Ursula Perrin book is listed as a “juvenile” and all the copies I could find were only in paperback form. (I can’t guarantee that no hardback copies exist, but I could only find paperback.)
If you are certain of the details, I can take a quick trip on Monday to the library – apparently they have 3 copies. Then I can check out the other details you list.
elfkin, I think I saw the book you are talking about while looking for the other book. I didn’t see your post until I did a preview of this one. I will look back and see if I can see it again.
OK, elfkin, I think I have it. Is it “The Ghosts” by Antonia Barber, edited by Ruth Ashby?
Here is an excerpt of the plot description by a middle-school girl (full reviewhere) :
"When Jamie and Lucy move into their new house as the caretakers until its hirers are bought they are somewhat excited about the fact that there are ghosts living there, or so goes the old wise tale. When Lucy actually sees the ghost she is quite alarmed, but the courage that her brother Jamie has drags her back to the site where they were seen. She discovers that they have to use the wheel of time to go forward in time to plead for help in their problem. In a way they are ghosts, Sara and her brother Georgie, because they live in the late 1870's, and yet you can feel them and they can't walk through walls.
When the cry for help is given, Jamie and Lucy doggedly push themselves back in time to save their friends from certain death. Who would want to kill Sara and Georgie so much that they would go so far that Sara is willing to make a potion to send herself forward in time to save her brother, the old house. Whether or not they succeed is yet another mystery that You will have to solve."
There are also reviews on Amazon, with one of the reviewers commenting: “It’s been frustrating looking for a book called ‘The Ghosts’–so general, and yet I never knew the author.”
Siimilar to your experience?
Hopefully, this is the one you are looking for!
MisterThyristor thanks a bunch! From the plot description it is most certainly the book I read. Yeah, next time I like a book with a generic title I’ll write down the author on the off chance I still care a decade later
Yup, Granuaile, looks like you are in luck:
Title: Ghosts Check
Author: Marsha Parker (female) Check
Publication Date: 1982 Check
Hardcover Check
Cover art:
Baptismal font Check
Butterfly Check
Plot: As described
Have fun reading it again!
P.S. could you make that a root beer? Iron Horse would be fantastic, but any good-quality bottled root beer would be great!
MisterThyristor,
You are my Library Deity. This was my favourite book as a lass, and I want to reread it to see if it is as good as I remember. Both you and the SDMB rock.
RE: Root Beer
If you want a virtual root beer, pick what you want. It’s on me.
If you want a real life root beer, give me the word, tell me where to send it and I’ll hook you up with something groovy from the Pop Stop. It will still be on me.
I told you I was serious.
G.
G.
I’ll settle for being your Library Deity for now. Maybe if we meet someday at a DopeFest, I’ll call you on the root beer!
Enjoy the book, it got great reviews, so it may very well be as good as you remember. I read also that it was a first and only for the author, she retired back to the farm or something afterwards, even though it was a good seller and got critical acclaim.
I didn’t check the book out, but I got 4 or 5 other books while I was at the library, so it was a productive trip all around.