Freakin Fridays is my own little meme. I’ll be posting about books, movies, and all things scary.
Feel free to join in and do your own Freakin Fridays posts.
Get your scare on!
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For today I’ll be sharing
Ellie Jordan: Ghost Trapper
Cold Shadows
Book Two
by J. L. Bryan
My Review
It’s time for Ellie to get back to ghost trapping. She’s got a nasty new case. Looks like it might be a poltergeist.
The family is experiencing loud noises, objects getting thrown around, toys playing by themselves.
There is a young lady in the house and that’s usually where a poltergeist comes from. All that teen angst. And she’s got a lot of it. But their younger son is experiencing some odd things too. Imaginary friends that are causing him to slowly withdraw from the family.
If it’s a poltergeist, it’s like nothing they’ve heard of before. Seems to be more powerful and have its own agenda.Things get more violent, and Ellie comes under attack. It’s time to trap this entity before some gets seriously hurt or dies.
Ellie’s new assistant Stacey, is coming along nicely. She may spend most of her time in their van outside, monitoring the cameras, but she’s ready at the drop of a hat to rush in when Ellie gets in trouble. Which she does when she tries to tackle whatever entity is attacking the family.
I like Stacey’s sense of humor. She’s always trying to put her own name to occurrences. And she never cuts Ellie any slack about her love life, or lack of.
Ellis is getting more confident as she gains experience. She’s a great researcher and not afraid to try a new angle when an entity defies capture.
There’s mention again of Ellie’s parents, teasers about how they died and by who or what’s hands. I hope we get that story somewhere in this series.
This was another gripping ghost tale and it had a gothic feel to it. I could see the house, scary even in the daylight. Feel the heavy, malevolent atmosphere inside. And I think I was more scared than Ellie when things got really violent.
The title for this series may have you thinking of the movie Ghostbusters. You might expect it to be all fun and filled with ecto spewing ghosts. There may be some of that, but these are darker, more developed hauntings, fraught with danger. Watch your step is what I say.
If you like ghost stories that make you jump at sudden noises, keep you looking at those shadows that move out of the corner of your eye, and sleep with the light on, I recommend you give this series a read. Keep a torch handy in case the electricity goes out.
5 Stars
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Synopsis
Footsteps in the attic. Toys that play by themselves. A dark presence in an upstairs room.
Paranormal investigator Ellie Jordan faces a difficult new case. Her new clients are a family haunted by multiple ghosts and a poltergeist that wrecks their home at night. Their seven-year-old son’s invisible friends may not be imaginary at all, but the restless spirits of dead children.
To clear her clients’ house of the dangerous entities, Ellie must unravel the mysterious deaths of another family who lived in the old mansion more than a hundred and sixty years ago—and she must do it before the ghosts can carry out their malevolent designs on her clients and their children.
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Ellie Jordan: Ghost Trapper
The Crawling Darkness
Book Three
My Review
I’m not sure why I didn’t notice it before, but checking out the titles to the books in this series, I noticed how cleverly they revealed hints about what’s waiting in the haunted pages inside.
There’s something nasty haunting the apartment house. One that Ellie and her boss, Calvin, have come up against before, and lost.
I’ve always been curious about how Calvin ended up in a wheelchair. I knew it had something to do with trapping ghosts and being attacked. The house they are investigating abuts another property. One with an abandoned, boarded up house. It just so happens, that’s where the attack occurred. Could this be the same entity? Could it have just moved to the next inhabited house? And is it appearing at the other houses that connect to the property?
Whatever it is, it seems to be drawn to the children. Feeds off of their fear. And if you get in its way, the consequences are very bad.
The creeping darkness reminded of the thing in the movie Babadook. You don’t see it clearly. It hides in the shadows, sneaking around, crawling on ceilings and along banisters. Slipping under doors and vanishing. How do you fight something like that?
Something fun is happening in this series too. Stacey and Jacob, the psychic they use in some of their cases, are dating. And one of the residents in the haunted apartments happens to be a hunky fireman, and he’s single. Could this be the end of Ellie’s sadly lacking love life? We’ll see.
I’ve got to hand it to the author. It takes a lot to give me the creeps, and the entities he’s thrown at me in this series have me rethinking ever stepping foot in anything with even a remote possibility of being haunted. Scary good it is. And I can’t imagine what he’ll spook me with next.
5 Stars
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Synopsis
Ghost removal specialist Ellie Jordan must face a dangerous, shape-shifting entity that she and Calvin have encountered once before, with tragic results. The spirit has the power to reach into the minds of living and feed on their fears, taking the shape of their worst nightmares, and it has awoken in search of new victims.
Now Ellie must try to succeed where she and her mentor failed before, and try to defeat the twisted and powerful old ghost before it can claim another soul for its collection.
AMAZON
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I reviewed the first book some time ago and want to share it today.
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
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This counts towards my Horror Reading Challenge.
is his first mystery. Having lived in Charleston on Sullivan’s Island for five years, the setting was a foregone conclusion. He and his wife along with their dog call South Carolina home.
About Heather Graham:
