Sylvia Shults
Born: 1968 in Chicago, Illinois
Pen Name: None Connection to Illinois: Shults has lived in Illinois all her life. Born in Chicago and raised in LaGrange, she went to college in Monmouth then moved to Normal for grad school. She lived in Bloomington for a while, and worked at the Bloomington Public Library. When she met her future husband, she moved to Pekin, and has been there ever since. They got married New Year's Eve 1999. She has worked at the Fondulac District Library in East Peoria since 1997. Biography: Sylvia Shults has worked as a librarian, Bookmobile driver, flower seller, dancer, and art model. She holds a Bachelor's degrees in Classics (Monmouth 1990), and a Master's in ancient Roman History (ISU 1992). Her hobbies include wild food foraging, baking, making wines and cordials, and gardening. She is hopelessly addicted to classical music and reading. Also a paranormal investigator, she writes both horror and romance, and is the first to admit that the line separating the two can be very fine indeed. She firmly believes that there is no such thing as too many projects, and is currently at work on her next novel. She lives in Illinois, practically right on the Illinois River, with her husband, two furry German shepherd daughters, two rotten cats, and far too many books.
Awards:
- '''''Timeless Embrace'''''
- -- USA Book News Finalist - Best Romance Novel '''''The Dreamwatcher'''''
- -- USA Book News Finalist - Best Horror Novel
Sylvia Shults on WorldCat : http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=sylvia+shults
Selected Titles
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44 years in darkness : ISBN: 9781892523471 OCLC: 960213239 Lost in the shadows of Illinois asylums in the nineteenth century is the strange story of Rhoda Derry. Left at the Adams County Poor Farm when her family could no longer care for her, she spent the next 40 years confined in a wooden box. Abandoned, ignored, and traumatized, she had clawed out her own eyes, pulled her own teeth, and her legs were atrophied to the point that she could not stand on her own, or even sit in a wheelchair. She spent four decades locked away from the world. Her crime? Falling in love. Rhoda suffered a mental breakdown after being cursed by the mother of a boy to whom she was engaged to marry. Committed to the poor farm because of her violent insanity, she was eventually rescued by pioneering alienist Dr. George A. Zeller. She was taken to the Peoria State Hospital in Bartonville, Illinois, where she spent the remainder of her days in comfort. Rhoda died in 1906, but her spirit lives on at the former asylum where she found peace. The chilling story of Rhoda Derry is one of the great tragedies of mental health care in Illinois, but one of the great success stories of the Peoria State Hospital. Sylvia Shults, author of Fractured Spirits: Hauntings at the Peoria State Hospital, returns to the hilltop to tell the story of Rhoda's life -- and her mysterious afterlife. With exhaustive historical research and analysis, as well as laying bare secrets of her own, the author provides twists, turns, and surprises in this compelling tale of history, horror, and a lingering spirit of the old hospital. |
| Borrowed flesh / ISBN: 1600761496 OCLC: 462977016 StoneGarden.Net Publishing, Danville, CA : ©2009. |
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Double double love and trouble ISBN: 9780984893133 OCLC: 828035273 Dark Continents Pub., [Illinois?] : ©2013. |
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Fractured spirits : ISBN: 0984893113 OCLC: 828036151 Dark Continents Pub., [Illinois?] : ©2012. |
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Games of Venus : ISBN: 073884070X OCLC: 47207321 Xlibris Corp., [Place of publication not identified] : ©2000. |
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Ghosts of the Illinois River : ISBN: 9781571665973 OCLC: 535261035 Quixote Press, Wever, Iowa : ©2010. |
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Golden Horus : ISBN: 0738839647 OCLC: 47207307 Xlibris Corp., [Place of publication not identified] : ©2000. |
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Hunting demons : ISBN: 9781892523969 OCLC: 920709168 Whitechapel Press, Jacksonville, Illinois : ©2015. For more than 150 years, seekers of the unknown have been trying to communicate with the other side, seeking out the lost souls who have died and yet still in habit the earth. But what if some of the spirits being sought were never really human at all? What if what they were hunting was also hunting them? |
| Price of admission / ISBN: 0983160325 OCLC: 711713432 Dark Continents Pub., [Illinois?] : ©2011. |
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The dreamwatcher / ISBN: 160076035X OCLC: 166245837 StoneGardent.Net Publishing, Danville, CA : ©2007. |
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The taming of the werewolf / ISBN: 0983160376 OCLC: 711715308 Dark Continents Pub., [Illinois?] : ©2011. |
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Timeless embrace / ISBN: 1602020736 OCLC: 191030872 Linden Bay Romance, [Place of publication not identified] : ©2007. |
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Voices in an empty room : ISBN: 0595210384 OCLC: 48947163 Writers Club Press, Lincoln, NE : 2001. |