Fourteen-year-old Kate's traditional first day at Wildwood Lake Park couldn't get any worse. Besides problems with her best friend and the obnoxious, but cute, boy from school named Tommy, there's the new haunted carousel ride. When Kate goes for a spin, she finds herself transported back in time and into the body of a ghost named Isabelle, circa 1928. Isabelle's husband carved the horse, and the rumor is that he also murdered Isabelle. Back in the present, Kate teams up with Tommy to solve the mystery of how Isabelle died, even if it means more terrifying rides on the carousel. As the investigation goes on, Kate finds herself growing closer to Isabelle than she is with Meghan. So when the carousel is slated to be dismantled for the park museum, Kate hurries to solve the mystery before Isabelle is doomed to wander the park--and Kate's dreams--forever.
The Story Behind The Carousel Ghost by Andrea Pelleschi
The Carousel Ghost is based on a real ghost story from Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio. Many years ago, I went up to Cedar Point and rode a lovely old-fashioned carousel, the kind with the carved wooden horses covered in ornate decorations. Afterward, I toured a small museum in Frontiersland, which had a beautiful black warhorse on display.
The tour guide told us an intriguing story about a ghost that inhabited the horse. Supposedly the carousel carver, a famous carver named Mueller, had murdered his wife because she'd been cheating on him. Then he'd cut up her body and placed it inside the horse. At least this is the story as I remember hearing it.
Over the years, people said they heard the horse gallop down the midway after the park closed or saw carousel lights come on all by themselves in the middle of the night. Ride operators even claimed the carousel was never in the same position in the morning as they’d left it in the night before.
This story sparked my imagination. What if it really were haunted? And what would happen to someone who was sensitive to ghosts when she rode the horse?
After doing some research, I learned that carousel horse carvers came to America in the late 1800s and worked on the east coast, primarily, for companies like the Philadelphia Toboggan Company. There was usually a head carver and others who worked for him. Many of the carvers were German. From this, I decided to make the carver German and have the ghost, his wife, be from the late 1920s.
I also learned that horses were made from solid blocks of wood, so it would be impossible for a body to be stashed inside one! This was not a problem. A solid horse can still be haunted!
If you want to learn more about the inspiration horse, this website has some information: http://www.ghostsofohio.org/lore/ohio_lore_18.html
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Andrea Pelleschi has been editing and writing children’s books for over 12 years. As an editor, she's worked on everything from coloring and novelty books to picture books and textbooks. As a freelance writer, she’s written primarily nonfiction, but her passion is scifi, fantasy, and paranormal. She has an MFA in creative writing, and The Carousel Ghost is her first novel. Currently Andrea lives in Ohio with her cat Ella, who, unlike her namesake Cinderella, never does any housework.
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