GHOST TRAPPER (Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper #1) by J.L. Bryan
Genre(s): Adult, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal
Published: September 16th 2014
Genre(s): Adult, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal
Published: September 16th 2014
[SYNOPSIS]
Ellie Jordan’s job is to catch and remove unwanted ghosts. Part detective, part paranormal exterminator, Ellie operates out of Savannah, Georgia, one of the oldest and most haunted cities in North America.
When a family contacts her to deal with a disturbing presence in the old mansion they’ve recently purchased, Ellie first believes it to be a typical, by-the-book specter, a residual haunting by a restless spirit. Instead, she finds herself confronting an evil older and more powerful than she’d ever expected, rooted in the house’s long and sordid history of luxury, sin, and murder. The dangerous entity seems particularly interested in her clients’ ten-year-old daughter.
Soon her own life is in danger, and Ellie must find a way to exorcise the darkness of the house before it can kill her, her clients, or their frightened young child.
Ellie Jordan’s job is to catch and remove unwanted ghosts. Part detective, part paranormal exterminator, Ellie operates out of Savannah, Georgia, one of the oldest and most haunted cities in North America.
When a family contacts her to deal with a disturbing presence in the old mansion they’ve recently purchased, Ellie first believes it to be a typical, by-the-book specter, a residual haunting by a restless spirit. Instead, she finds herself confronting an evil older and more powerful than she’d ever expected, rooted in the house’s long and sordid history of luxury, sin, and murder. The dangerous entity seems particularly interested in her clients’ ten-year-old daughter.
Soon her own life is in danger, and Ellie must find a way to exorcise the darkness of the house before it can kill her, her clients, or their frightened young child.
[PURCHASE LINKS]
[AUTHOR BIO]
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 lives in Atlanta with his wife, his son, and some dogs and cats and no ghosts, as far as he knows.
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[STALK LINKS]
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To hear about future books by J.L. Bryan, sign up for his new release newsletter
---> HERE <---
[STALK LINKS]
WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | GOODREADS | AMAZON
FIVE SIGNS YOUR HOUSE MAY BE HAUNTED
Things go bump in the night. You feel like someone is always watching you. You think you have a ghost, but maybe it’s a just a creepy squirrel scrambling around your attic at night and staring at you through the windows. How can you tell for sure?
The editors of Ladies’ Haunted Home Journal are back with an easy guide to determining whether a
paranormal presence infests your house! Before calling the ghost trappers, consider whether you have any of the following signs:
COLD SPOTS: One or more areas in your house might seem much colder the space around it. This may be a corner, closet, or other out-of-the-way spot. You may be excited to learn that when you feel the cold spot, you’re not just in the presence of a restless dead spirit, you’re also touching it! You’re almost inside the ghost, and it’s kind of inside you. Pretty neat. Important note: A cold spot inside your refrigerator or freezer may be caused by the appliance itself.
STRANGE SOUNDS: You may hear moaning, groaning, thumping or crashing late at night. Make sure it isn’t an elderly neighbor or relative bumbling around your house. If you hear voices threatening you with death or dismemberment, you might consider the benefits of spending the night at a Motel 6.
MYSTERIOUS MOTION: Plates slide off the counter. Doors open or close by themselves. The chandelier leaped down from the ceiling, flew across the room, and tried to kill you last week. You’re beginning to think something may be amiss. First, make sure there aren’t any logical causes for these problems, such as keeping your counter too greasy, or a broken hinge in the door, or that idiot who installed your chandelier. If you can’t find an explanation, odds are you’ve got a ghost (or a poltergeist, but let’s not split hairs).
ABSURD DISAPPEARANCES: Your keys disappear from your end table, only to be found in the fish tank. Your good silver vanishes, piece by piece, and you discover all of down in a mysterious back corner of the basement. It’s either a family member with bizarre hoarding tendencies or a mischievous ghost. Either way, you’ve got an annoying problem on your hands.
FULL APPARITIONS: If you have seen a ghost appear and disappear, you probably have a ghost. We don’t really have an alternate explanation for this one. Call your local paranormal exterminator today!
We hope these tips will help you sort out whether your house is haunted or your family just weird! If you have further questions, please read our pamphlet: My House is Haunted – What Now? Good luck with that ghost!
* * *
TOOLS OF THE GHOST TRADE
Are you tired of slogging away at the same old dead-end day job? Do you want a career with flexible hours, iffy benefits, and lots of contact with angry dead spirits? Ghost catching might be the job for you!
At Metaphysical Manufacturing, Ltd., we fully support and encourage your efforts to enter into the dream job that we’ve just now suggested! Part of the reason is that you’ll have to buy lots of products from us in order to be a professional ghost trapper, but we also care about you as a person and stuff.
So what will you need?
GHOST TRAINING: We recommend you order our complete twelve-book, nineteen-video training course,
which includes such useful manuals as Boogeyman Basics and How Not to Get Your Soul Ripped From Your Flesh. After filling out our correspondence-course exam and sending us a large check, you’ll get your official ghost-grabber certification!
GHOST SENSORS: Several devices can help you determine whether a ghost is in the room with you...maybe even right behind you! The most basic is an electromagnetic frequency (EMF) meter. Ghosts have electromagnetic fields, probably, and these can be detected with modern scientific instruments, maybe. Definitely buy one! We recommend you also pick up our special motion detectors and ghost thermometers—which measure how warm or cold the room is!
GHOST GOGGLES: Sooner or later, you’ll want to see the ghosts you’re hunting. We recommend sooner! We offer both night vision and thermal imaging goggles to help you find elusive spirits. You can buy one or the other, but it’s best if you buy both!
GHOST MICROPHONE: Use a high-powered, ultra-sensitive microphone (like the ones we sell!) to help you pick up whispers and guttural threats from the Other Side. Spend hours recording, and countless more hours listening and trying to find voices in the static! You’ll never have so much fun again!
GHOST TRAP: This is the final “must-have” piece of gear. Your customers will pay you to remove unwanted spirits from their homes, so you’ll want some way to do that. We sell a range of affordable traps, from simple lead-glass jars to phone-booth-sized Faraday cages that create a solid electromagnetic barrier no wicked wraith can escape! We recommend you buy them all.
With these simple purchases, totaling less than eighty thousand dollars, you can become a professional ghost trapper, too! Visit our website to learn (or buy) more!
* * *
WHY GHOSTS?
My new series follows the adventures of Ellie Jordan, a private detective who specializes in removing ghosts from haunted houses and other locations. There are several reasons I wanted to write about ghosts in particular. They’re particularly interesting as paranormal characters/creatures go, because unlike vampires, werewolves, zombies, and so on, there is at least some chance that ghosts might really exist. While we can say with some confidence that nobody in the world actually turns into the wolf on a full moon, we can’t dismiss ghosts with as much certainty.
Ghosts have been with us for at least as long as recorded history. Ghosts are mentioned in the most ancient texts, including The Epic of Gilgamesh, the world’s earliest known work of literature. Odysseus speaks with ghosts in the underworld; in the Old Testament, the witch of Endor summons the ghost of the prophet Samuel to speak with King Saul.
Ghosts are universal, and stories of ghosts and spirits exist in all human societies. This made them an even more appealing subject, because the world of the story could be virtually identical to our own. It’s not hard to find people who claim to have encountered a ghost at some point in their lives. Maybe you’ve encountered one yourself!
In the spirit of keeping the series in close touch with reality, I decided that Ellie’s assorted ghost gear would consist of real items, as much as possible. Since there is now a huge “ghost hunter” subculture, there is a pretty wide assortment of related tools available: EMF Meter, Mel-Meters, special motion detectors, and so on. Ghost hunters typically use infrared, nightvision, and high-powered microphones to detect voices or other spectral sounds.
I also studied a large number of reported ghost sightings and encounters, as well as near-death experiences, to learn all I could about how ghosts behave and what their motivations might be. There were far, far more stories out there than I originally expected to find.
Finally, while writing the first book, I realized that while the series provided an opportunity to write lots of fun, spooky mystery stories, it also brought me to deeper questions about human nature and reality itself. All fiction is really about exploring the human soul, and ghost stories are all about the human soul.
I hope you’ll join Ellie on her adventures in ghost trapping! I’ve put a lot of work into developing this series, and I can’t wait to see where it goes next.
* * *
HAUNTED SAVANNAH
Ellie Jordan, the lead character in my new series, has a fairly interesting job—she works for a small private detective agency that specializes in capturing and removing unwanted ghosts.
I knew the setting of the series would be important, and it was fun to consider where a ghost-catching agency might be most profitably located. An old city would be best, but there aren’t many of those in the United States. In fact, by the standards of most of the world, we don’t have any truly old cities here, nothing as ancient as Paris, Rome, or Jerusalem.
The oldest cities are generally located along the East Coast. I considered Boston and New York, but I’ve never even been to those cities—and besides, the Ghostbusters have pretty well staked out New York City as their territory.
The obvious choice for me was Savannah, Georgia, a city much closer to me, and one I’ve visited a few times (and look forward to visiting again in the future). I knew I was lucky to have it close by; it’s not just old, but characterized by beautiful architecture dating back to the colonial era. The downtown is made of up twenty-two squares, each with a small park surrounded by old mansions and other buildings in every conceivable architectural style. It’s almost dreamlike to walk through the city surrounded by gardens, wrought iron, marble columns, fountains, and statues. Beautiful, old, and not far away—a perfect setting for the new ghost series!
As I turned out during, I was luckier than I knew. I’ve read again and again that seventy percent of the buildings in Savannah’s downtown are said to be haunted. I have no idea where this figure came from, but it sounds like a lot. The city isn’t just haunted because it’s old.
Do you remember how that house in Poltergeist was built on top of an old cemetery? The entire city of Savannah is like that. Countless graveyards have been paved over as the city expanded over the centuries. Unmarked graves lie beneath the streets and the beautiful antique mansions.
The only thing more conducive to a haunting would be if the city were also built on top of old Native American burial grounds. It turns out that’s the case, too.
Things go bump in the night. You feel like someone is always watching you. You think you have a ghost, but maybe it’s a just a creepy squirrel scrambling around your attic at night and staring at you through the windows. How can you tell for sure?
The editors of Ladies’ Haunted Home Journal are back with an easy guide to determining whether a
paranormal presence infests your house! Before calling the ghost trappers, consider whether you have any of the following signs:
COLD SPOTS: One or more areas in your house might seem much colder the space around it. This may be a corner, closet, or other out-of-the-way spot. You may be excited to learn that when you feel the cold spot, you’re not just in the presence of a restless dead spirit, you’re also touching it! You’re almost inside the ghost, and it’s kind of inside you. Pretty neat. Important note: A cold spot inside your refrigerator or freezer may be caused by the appliance itself.
STRANGE SOUNDS: You may hear moaning, groaning, thumping or crashing late at night. Make sure it isn’t an elderly neighbor or relative bumbling around your house. If you hear voices threatening you with death or dismemberment, you might consider the benefits of spending the night at a Motel 6.
MYSTERIOUS MOTION: Plates slide off the counter. Doors open or close by themselves. The chandelier leaped down from the ceiling, flew across the room, and tried to kill you last week. You’re beginning to think something may be amiss. First, make sure there aren’t any logical causes for these problems, such as keeping your counter too greasy, or a broken hinge in the door, or that idiot who installed your chandelier. If you can’t find an explanation, odds are you’ve got a ghost (or a poltergeist, but let’s not split hairs).
ABSURD DISAPPEARANCES: Your keys disappear from your end table, only to be found in the fish tank. Your good silver vanishes, piece by piece, and you discover all of down in a mysterious back corner of the basement. It’s either a family member with bizarre hoarding tendencies or a mischievous ghost. Either way, you’ve got an annoying problem on your hands.
FULL APPARITIONS: If you have seen a ghost appear and disappear, you probably have a ghost. We don’t really have an alternate explanation for this one. Call your local paranormal exterminator today!
We hope these tips will help you sort out whether your house is haunted or your family just weird! If you have further questions, please read our pamphlet: My House is Haunted – What Now? Good luck with that ghost!
* * *
TOOLS OF THE GHOST TRADE
Are you tired of slogging away at the same old dead-end day job? Do you want a career with flexible hours, iffy benefits, and lots of contact with angry dead spirits? Ghost catching might be the job for you!
At Metaphysical Manufacturing, Ltd., we fully support and encourage your efforts to enter into the dream job that we’ve just now suggested! Part of the reason is that you’ll have to buy lots of products from us in order to be a professional ghost trapper, but we also care about you as a person and stuff.
So what will you need?
GHOST TRAINING: We recommend you order our complete twelve-book, nineteen-video training course,
which includes such useful manuals as Boogeyman Basics and How Not to Get Your Soul Ripped From Your Flesh. After filling out our correspondence-course exam and sending us a large check, you’ll get your official ghost-grabber certification!
GHOST SENSORS: Several devices can help you determine whether a ghost is in the room with you...maybe even right behind you! The most basic is an electromagnetic frequency (EMF) meter. Ghosts have electromagnetic fields, probably, and these can be detected with modern scientific instruments, maybe. Definitely buy one! We recommend you also pick up our special motion detectors and ghost thermometers—which measure how warm or cold the room is!
GHOST GOGGLES: Sooner or later, you’ll want to see the ghosts you’re hunting. We recommend sooner! We offer both night vision and thermal imaging goggles to help you find elusive spirits. You can buy one or the other, but it’s best if you buy both!
GHOST MICROPHONE: Use a high-powered, ultra-sensitive microphone (like the ones we sell!) to help you pick up whispers and guttural threats from the Other Side. Spend hours recording, and countless more hours listening and trying to find voices in the static! You’ll never have so much fun again!
GHOST TRAP: This is the final “must-have” piece of gear. Your customers will pay you to remove unwanted spirits from their homes, so you’ll want some way to do that. We sell a range of affordable traps, from simple lead-glass jars to phone-booth-sized Faraday cages that create a solid electromagnetic barrier no wicked wraith can escape! We recommend you buy them all.
With these simple purchases, totaling less than eighty thousand dollars, you can become a professional ghost trapper, too! Visit our website to learn (or buy) more!
* * *
WHY GHOSTS?
My new series follows the adventures of Ellie Jordan, a private detective who specializes in removing ghosts from haunted houses and other locations. There are several reasons I wanted to write about ghosts in particular. They’re particularly interesting as paranormal characters/creatures go, because unlike vampires, werewolves, zombies, and so on, there is at least some chance that ghosts might really exist. While we can say with some confidence that nobody in the world actually turns into the wolf on a full moon, we can’t dismiss ghosts with as much certainty.
Ghosts have been with us for at least as long as recorded history. Ghosts are mentioned in the most ancient texts, including The Epic of Gilgamesh, the world’s earliest known work of literature. Odysseus speaks with ghosts in the underworld; in the Old Testament, the witch of Endor summons the ghost of the prophet Samuel to speak with King Saul.
Ghosts are universal, and stories of ghosts and spirits exist in all human societies. This made them an even more appealing subject, because the world of the story could be virtually identical to our own. It’s not hard to find people who claim to have encountered a ghost at some point in their lives. Maybe you’ve encountered one yourself!
In the spirit of keeping the series in close touch with reality, I decided that Ellie’s assorted ghost gear would consist of real items, as much as possible. Since there is now a huge “ghost hunter” subculture, there is a pretty wide assortment of related tools available: EMF Meter, Mel-Meters, special motion detectors, and so on. Ghost hunters typically use infrared, nightvision, and high-powered microphones to detect voices or other spectral sounds.
I also studied a large number of reported ghost sightings and encounters, as well as near-death experiences, to learn all I could about how ghosts behave and what their motivations might be. There were far, far more stories out there than I originally expected to find.
Finally, while writing the first book, I realized that while the series provided an opportunity to write lots of fun, spooky mystery stories, it also brought me to deeper questions about human nature and reality itself. All fiction is really about exploring the human soul, and ghost stories are all about the human soul.
I hope you’ll join Ellie on her adventures in ghost trapping! I’ve put a lot of work into developing this series, and I can’t wait to see where it goes next.
* * *
HAUNTED SAVANNAH
Ellie Jordan, the lead character in my new series, has a fairly interesting job—she works for a small private detective agency that specializes in capturing and removing unwanted ghosts.
I knew the setting of the series would be important, and it was fun to consider where a ghost-catching agency might be most profitably located. An old city would be best, but there aren’t many of those in the United States. In fact, by the standards of most of the world, we don’t have any truly old cities here, nothing as ancient as Paris, Rome, or Jerusalem.
The oldest cities are generally located along the East Coast. I considered Boston and New York, but I’ve never even been to those cities—and besides, the Ghostbusters have pretty well staked out New York City as their territory.
The obvious choice for me was Savannah, Georgia, a city much closer to me, and one I’ve visited a few times (and look forward to visiting again in the future). I knew I was lucky to have it close by; it’s not just old, but characterized by beautiful architecture dating back to the colonial era. The downtown is made of up twenty-two squares, each with a small park surrounded by old mansions and other buildings in every conceivable architectural style. It’s almost dreamlike to walk through the city surrounded by gardens, wrought iron, marble columns, fountains, and statues. Beautiful, old, and not far away—a perfect setting for the new ghost series!
As I turned out during, I was luckier than I knew. I’ve read again and again that seventy percent of the buildings in Savannah’s downtown are said to be haunted. I have no idea where this figure came from, but it sounds like a lot. The city isn’t just haunted because it’s old.
Do you remember how that house in Poltergeist was built on top of an old cemetery? The entire city of Savannah is like that. Countless graveyards have been paved over as the city expanded over the centuries. Unmarked graves lie beneath the streets and the beautiful antique mansions.
The only thing more conducive to a haunting would be if the city were also built on top of old Native American burial grounds. It turns out that’s the case, too.
[HOSTED BY]