Series: Ellie Jordan

Review: The Keeper by J.L. Bryan

Posted November 12, 2019 by Lily B in Reviews / 33 Comments

Review: The Keeper by J.L. BryanThe Keeper by J.L. Bryan
Series: Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper #8
Published by J.L. Bryan on December 27, 2016
Genres: Paranormal, Ghosts, Urban Fantasy
Pages: 302
Format: Kindle Edition
Source: Gifted
Buy on Amazon
Rating:4 Stars

The South Channel lighthouse is a crumbling antique at the mouth of the Savannah River, abandoned and forgotten for generations. Local stories still tell of a mysterious woman in white who often stood at the old lighthouse, watching the sailors come into port...even long after she died.
Now the property by the lighthouse is owned by a famous movie star in search of a remote beach getaway on sleepy Tybee Island. Unfortunately, old ghosts haunt her new retreat, stirred up by the construction of a luxurious new mansion. Ellie, Stacey, and their team must remove the ghosts, who grow more dangerous and aggressive every night, threatening the lives of the client and her family and personal staff.
The lighthouse has a dark history, with many ghosts, and mysteries to unravel before Ellie can send them on to the other side.

If there is one book series that I can count on to pull me out of my slump, that’s Ellie Jordan by J.L Bryan and like the past few books in this series, this one does not disappoint.

Ellie is back, still trying to deal with the events of the last book as she struggles with the new management that took over her agency and finding the ghost that haunts her dreams.

In this one, we follow Ellie and Stacy to an island with a lighthouse, currently owned by an actress. As Ellie and Stacy scramble to capture the ghosts that haunt the house of the actress before her family comes to town, they are also trying to uncover the mysterious magician that haunts one of the theaters they believe might be connected to Anton Clay.

Chilling, entertaining and always fun, J.L Bryan delivers in another fantastic Ellie Jordan installment that held me captive and chewing through the pages.

I can’t get enough of Ellie and Stacy and how far they have come now and how close they seem to be getting what Ellie truly wants. There were a few good surprises in this book, the character development was great and I found myself enjoying this as much as the others. It also wraps up some loose connections from the previous installment.

I cannot wait to see what’s in store for Ellie and Stacy next, especially after that kind of an ending.

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Terminal by J.L. Bryan

Posted October 19, 2016 by Lily B in Reviews / 22 Comments

Terminal by J.L. BryanTerminal by J.L. Bryan
Series: Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper #4
Published by www.jlbryanbooks.com on May 4th 2015
Genres: Ghosts, Paranormal, Urban Fantasy
Pages: 211
Format: Kindle Edition
Source: Bought
Buy on Amazon
Rating:4 Stars

Ellie Jordan and her apprentice Stacey investigate a house in an elaborate planned community that was only half-built before it went bankrupt, leaving an instant ghost town with only a few residents. The entity haunting this house is a banshee that feeds on sadness and misery.
Unfortunately for Ellie, this is no simple haunting, but just one symptom of the cursed land on which the suburban community was built. The old railroad line running through the nearby woods might just be a conduit for lost souls, including dark spirits with ill intentions toward the living. Ellie soon finds herself facing one of the most complex and difficult hauntings she’s seen in her career.

Ellie and Stacy are investigating a house of a young couple with a baby on the way, living in a community that was never fully developed. Ellie suspects that the ghost might be a banshee and is feeding off on the soon to be mother because of her delicate state.

It should have been a simple haunting, but Ellie and Stacy soon find that the situation is a bit more complicated. Near the failed development runs an old railroad through the woods, a ghost train, lost souls and dark spirits that can be harmful to the hand full of people living nearby.

Wow, what a thrilling ride. Bryan has done it again with this new installment that focuses on a much more complicated haunting that takes the duo out of the house and into their surroundings. I love the creepy, atmospheric setting of the woods, the ghost train and the mystery behind what happened when a train robber went wrong.

I thought this was a very nice addition to the series and I liked how the story branched out and that it wasn’t just a regular house haunting. As always Bryan does an amazing job putting together an interesting background story of what happened to the people on the train and I found the entire thing exciting and fascinating. It made me eagerly flip through my kindle pages to see how it all turned out.

As much as I absolutely adored the story and train robbers and how it connected, I was a bit rattled by the ending. It felt a bit strange, too convenient, too random, as if Bryan wasn’t sure where he was going with it and just threw it all together the last minute. I was left with more questions than answers. Out of all the times she had spent trapping ghosts, why did it happen this way now? The whole resolution with the main baddie ghost was just odd and I have a feeling that whatever it was that Ellie saw that night might not get addressed in later books. I hope that Bryan will prove me wrong in that regard.

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Review: Cold Shadows by J.L. Bryan

Posted September 25, 2016 by Lily B in Reviews / 11 Comments

Review:  Cold Shadows by J.L. BryanCold Shadows by J.L. Bryan
Series: Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper #2
Published by Createspace on October 29th 2014
Genres: Ghosts, Paranormal, Urban Fantasy
Pages: 178
Source: Author
Buy on Amazon
Rating:4.5 Stars

I received this book for free from Author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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.

I cannot believe it took me nearly a year to finish Cold Shadows, but once I had the time to pick it up again, I found that I had a really hard time putting it down. It doesn’t help that I can only read this book dead in the middle of the night, because J.L. Bryan weaves a story so realistically creepy, it really brought a chill up my spine.

Stacy and Ellie are back at it again and this time the ghosts are far more dangerous and terrifying. Upon investigating their new clients house, they run into restless ghosts of dead children and malevolent entities that are out to harm the family living in the house. As Ellie and Stacy unravel the mystery behind the death of the family who once lived there, the haunting spirals into a very dangerous territory that leaves them running low on time.

Adored this book so much.. Bryan really knows how to tell a realistic ghost story with an interesting background that just hooks you from the start. It’s extremely engrossing and I for one have a hard time untangling myself into the real world. I love everything about the writing and the way the story and the characters progress.

Ellie is a great character, with a lot of heart. She really cares about her friends, but due to a very complicated past and her very dangerous job, she has a really hard time letting people in. She is also quirky, as well as Stacy which creates really fun banter between them that leaves a smile on my face. I love the connection between them, they feed off each other as friends so well and I believe Ellie really needs that in her life.

I cannot wait to see what Bryan has in store for these two. This has easily become one of my all time favorite series. Did I mention that I truly enjoy learning the history behind the haunting? I think it’s so fascinating and so well thought out and put together that it just delivers a really good ghost story. Bryan did not hold back with this one, the haunting was sinister, it was so creepy that any fan of ghost stories should really give this series a shot.

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