Paranormal Road Trip: Destination Sydney, Australia with Yolanda Sfetsos

Come on boys and ghouls!  It's time to hop on Route 666 for a spooktacular Paranormal Road Trip.  This week's stop is San Diego, California and our special guide is Yolanda Sfetsos, author of the Sierra Fox urban fantasy series.

The Sierra Fox series is set in Sydney, Australia so it seems fitting that our guide for this week's Paranormal Road Trip be author Yolanda Sfetsos.  Let's see what terrifying places Yolanda has planned for our tour.

Sydney's Top 5 Spooky Places

Hi! It’s great to be here today. Although I set my Sierra Fox series in my city of Sydney, because it actually takes place in an alternate history where ghosts have rights, I decided to set it in a fictional suburb called Serene Hills. Serene Hills is a combination of the many suburbs I’ve lived in.

So, here are the spookiest places:

5. Bayview Cemetery is the local cemetery. As a spook catcher, it’s also a place that Sierra tries not to visit too often. There are always too many wandering spirits trying to get her attention.

4. The Hocking House is situated in Serene Hills East, the more expensive part of town. It’s where a whole lot of demonic trouble starts after an amateur who had no business conjuring any kind of demonic entity raises one that wreaks havoc inside this lovely house. Serious trouble that ripples throughout the entire series.

3. The Haunted House is only a five minute drive from Sierra’s home and is a ‘hotspot for chaotic spook activity’. It’s also a place from Sierra’s childhood—where she spent a horrifying night trapped with a girl called Jackie and the horrors trapped inside. The results changed her young life. After that night, Jackie spread hurtful rumors about Sierra and made her school life miserable.

Later in life it becomes an address she visits constantly to remove one spook after another. Ultimately, this house becomes a place where something devastating happens to someone she cares about.

2. Spook Catcher Council Tower is located on Sussex Street in the CBD. Sussex Street is the name of an actual street in Sydney. And the building I imagined actually stands exactly where I situated this Tower, near an overpass that leads to the motorway. But it’s not called SCCT, and it’s certainly not the chaotic hub that I created in Sierra’s world.

The Spook Catcher Council is a terrible place that always makes Sierra feel physically ill. That’s because misbehaving/dangerous spooks are deposited here before sentencing. But as she eventually finds out…there is something a LOT worse hidden beneath.

1. The abandoned part of town is located in North Serene Hills, and there are many reasons why this is the spookiest, most haunted place in Sierra’s world. Not only because it’s been abandoned for decades, with imprints of people from long ago still caught in a cycle. There’s also a magical power grid situated here, as well as a three-pronged crossroads fit for a Goddess. It’s where the hunters meet with the mysterious Tailor from the Patch Watchdog once a month.

Yet, as creepy and filled with paranormal activity as this location is, it’s deeply connected to Sierra. For many otherworldly reasons.

Thank you Yolanda for giving us such a haunting tour of Sydney!  

To learn more about Yolanda Sfetsos and her books, please visit her website, and don't miss our Q+A with Yolanda Sfetsos here at From the Shadows.  You can add the Sierra Fox urban fantasy series here on Goodreads.

Have you visited Sydney, Australia?  Ever experience anything of the supernatural kind in and around Sydney?

What did you think of Yolanda's picks for spooky places?

Last week on Paranormal Road Trip we visited San Diego with Jennifer Harlow.  Next week we'll be traveling to Dublin with Ruth Frances Long.

Join us for another spine-tingling Paranormal Road Trip...
if you dare!