In Dahlonega Haunts, her fourth book, Blackmarr shines her keen self-reflective literary powers on the ghostly citizens of Old Dahlonega as she explores the side streets, buildings, and graveyards of North America's first gold-mining town with psychic medium Brian Keith. Dahlonega's rich, colorful history springs to life during her investigations, interviews, and fascinating personal encounters. Grisly murders, abandoned gold mines, mysterious chess pieces, and the haunted Historic Holly Theater are just part of the eerie backdrop for a cast of ghostly characters who prove to be, in the end, only human after all.

Blackmarr, originally from South Georgia, lived in Dahlonega when she wrote her third book, Above the Fall Line: the Trail from White Pine Cabin, set in a tiny cabin in North Georgia's Yahoola Valley.

Dahlonega Haunts is not as much of a stretch for the nature writer as her fans might think, considering that she often writes about what she calls the “extraordinary nature” of everyday life. But writing the book was another courageous plunge for the author--into the heart of the ghostly community inhabiting Dahlonega’s historic buildings.

"I was astonished by the sheer number of stories I heard. Some Dahlonega ghosts seem partial to kitchens, Blackmarr said. “They tip over wine glasses, toss spatulas, open cabinets, and move pot lids around" One woman ghost at a nearby cemetery actually sang to me. Another perpetually waits at a window overlooking the square."

Described by The Atlanta Journal Constitution as a writer with “a self-deprecating wit and an uncommon grace,” Blackmarr’s previous books relate wrenching tales on herself through the medium of her relationships with the rustic hide-outs she lives in and the natural world. Her first book, Going to Ground, which The Georgia Center for The Book selected as one of the Top 25 Books all Georgians Should Read, was written in her grandfather’s fishing cabin on a South-Georgia pond. In 1999 Viking published House of Steps, stories of the author’s life in the gawky Kansas ‘hippie house’ she lived in while at graduate school work. “I’ve always been certain that some other ‘reality’ exists beyond the one I can see and hear and touch," Blackmarr says. "Whether I find answers hiking up Black Mountain or hobnobbing with ghosts on the Square, it's really all the same quest in the end, isn't it?”