Got some pesky ghosts? Who ya gonna call? Ellie Jordan, of course.
Tis the season for some spooky tales and I’ve got a good one to share with you.
Enjoy my review of Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper.
And don’t forget to enter the giveaway!
The first thing I noticed about this book was the story takes place in Georgia. It’s supposed to be one of the most haunted cities in the south, steeped in dark stories. It’s the perfect setting.
You’ve read the blurb so you know this is about a haunted house. So I’m going to introduce you to the ghost trappers from Eckhart Investigations instead of telling you what you already know.
Retired Homicide Detective Calvin Eckhart is the owner and boss man. He needed something to do with all of those empty days and it was an easy decision to start investigating hauntings as he had a keen interest in the supernatural.
Since he’s confined to a wheelchair and not getting any younger, he hires Ellie James to do the work for him. To determine if there is, in fact, a haunting, and then take care of that pesky ghost.
Ellie Jordan, head ghost trapper. Her job is to determine if a house is haunted, and either to get the ghost to vacate, or trap it and dispose of it in a safe place.
She’s my favorite character. Smart, determined, and gutsy, she goes places I’d never dream of entering.
But even she is terrified as the ghost turns out to be many ghosts, and the danger escalates into the physical realm.
Stacey is the newbie. Eckhart didn’t like Ellie going into a haunting investigation alone. It could be very dangerous. Stacey always had an interest in ghosts, and really wants to meet one up close. She helps set up the video equipment and monitored the cameras from outside in a van. She’s in contact with Ellie, and helps to pinpoint where a ghost might be lingering. Her enthusiasm is fun and addictive. I doubt she’ll be so eager to see a ghost after this job.
Jacob Weiss is thrust upon Ellie by the boss. Eckhart insists a psychic could be beneficial. Jacob is one of only a few survivors of a horrible plane crash and now can contact ghosts. He comes into the story closer to the end so I didn’t get to know him very well, but as this is a series, I hope to see more of him. He did come in handy though, so Eckhart was wise to use him.
Finally, the hauntees, the Treadwell family, consisting of Dale, Anna, and their young daughter Lexa. They bought a rundown mansion in an out of the way place. The only other structures on the street are some derelict warehouses and factories. They have big plans to renovate the house and turn it into a bed and breakfast. Dale came up with a great idea. They could add a sports lounge for the men, complete with a huge flat screen TV to watch the games, and plenty of beer. That would make it appealing to the husbands while the quiet holiday appealed to the wives. It’s really a good idea.
There’s just one little hitch. The house came with a ghost, a very expressive ghost. It wants just one thing…for them to vacate the premises, now!
I’d tell you about the ghosts but that would be telling you the story. I can tell you this. I don’t think I’ve experienced such an intense, nail-biting, scene as the one when these characters enter the house for the final event. If it was a movie, I’d have been peeking through my fingers. Horror doesn’t always come with a happy outcome, so all of them were fair game to die a grisly death. That kept me reading, eyes zipping from word to word, hoping for the best and fearing the worst. I was breathless afterwards and my shoulders ached from the tension.
The author nailed it with his characters. Each almost immediately became familiar.
His ghosts were terrifying.
The plot was fun and scary and your quickly immersed in it.
And this is book one in the series, so read it now. That way you’ll be ready for the next one.
5 Stars
The host of creeps closed in around us. I’d heard at least three distinct voices, but there could have been more specters than that. It felt like a dark cloud of them, a cluster of ghosts that had more or less lost their individual identities, their yearnings merging into a combined pool of hunger, anger, pain, or whatever emotions motivated them to stick around instead of moving on. A “cluster haunting” is Calvin’s term for this.
We pushed through the thick, dark air and passed through another doorway. We should have seen at least one of the glowing green arrows I had drawn, but we didn’t. The darkness was like heavy, cold smoke, crushing in to choke us while we walked blindly through it.
Then the groan sounded again, followed by the other voices. They grabbed at us from every side, with hands that were invisible and insubstantial until they clawed into you. I felt icy fingers on my legs, another hand grabbing at my stomach, and another seized the back of my neck. That one made me scream.
Stacey screamed beside me, but I could barely even seen her. Pale, distended, half-formed faces rose in the darkness, their eye sockets hollow, the dark misshapen holes of their mouths wide open as if they expected to feed.
“They’re all over me!” Stacey shouted.
Since our flashlights weren’t helping much, I had to switch tactics. I holstered my flashlight and traded it for a wireless palm-sized Bose speaker. Then I touched the iPod on my belt to activate my emergency playlist.
I held out the little speaker like a weapon toward the nearest creepy, pale half-face.
A slice of Handel’s “Messiah” blasted out at ear-crashing volume. It was the Hallelujah Chorus, one of the loudest and most potent sections of the song—I didn’t have two hours for build-up.
The hallelujahs, as sung by hundreds of voices in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir backed by a full orchestra, rang out into the lightless basement room, echoing back from the walls around us.
Ghosts in long-abandoned properties like the old asylum are accustomed to years of darkness and quiet. This is why a powerful tactical flashlight beam can jar them. So can the right kind of music. My little speaker created a wall of sound—strings, brass, and voices organized and brimming with power, the song itself glowing with religious intent. It wouldn’t harm the ghosts, but like a sudden burst of light, it might chase them away for a moment or two.
The faces spun around us, losing shape, their voices crying out in shock and surprise.
The dark cloud filling the room thinned a bit. It didn’t disperse or vanish, but suddenly we could see a bright green arrow drawn in glowing chalk.
“That way!” I said.
Stacey and I hurried. Our flashlights were blasting at full power again rather than getting absorbed by the darkness. I didn’t know how long it would take the ghosts to adapt to the powerful music filling their lair—maybe a few minutes, maybe just a couple of seconds. Then, I had no doubt, they would close in around us again, much angrier than before.
We had to get out of there before that happened.
The faintly glowing arrows guided us back to the steel fire door for the stairwell. I pulled on the handle. At this point, I half-expected the door to be stuck or locked by the specters, trapping us in the basement.
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J.L. Bryan studied English literature at the University of Georgia and at Oxford, with a focus on the English Renaissance and the Romantic period. He also studied screenwriting at UCLA. He
enjoys remixing elements of paranormal, supernatural, fantasy, horror and science fiction into new kinds of stories.
He is the author of The Paranormals series of horror novels (Jenny Pox, Tommy Nightmare, and Alexander Death) the Songs of Magic series for younger readers (Fairy Metal Thunder, Fairy Blues, and Fairystruck…so far) and other books. He lives in Atlanta with his wife Christina, their son, and some dogs and cats.
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