J. L. Bryan

Speculative Fiction

Now available on Amazon (Amazon UK), NookAppleKobo, and Smashwords.


Available as an audiobook on Amazon, Audible, iTunes, and Barnes & Noble.

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.

Now available on Amazon (Amazon UK), NookAppleKobo, and Smashwords.


Available as an audiobook on Amazon, Audible, iTunes, and Barnes & Noble.


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.

Cold Shadows, Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper

Now available on Amazon (Amazon UKNookAppleKoboand Smashwords.


Available as an audiobook on Amazon, Audible, iTunes, and Barnes & Noble.

Paranormal investigator Ellie Jordan faces a new case in an apartment building where a twisted, dangerous entity emerges from closets and doorways to terrorize the residents at night. A powerful spirit, it feeds on fear and takes the shape of its victims' worst nightmares.

Ellie and her mentor Calvin have tried to capture the same entity before, in a different house nearby, an attempt that ended in disaster. Now, with the help of her apprentice Stacey, Ellie must try again to capture the elusive shapeshifting ghost before it can claim another soul as its own.


The fourth Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper book is available on Amazon (Amazon UK).

Also available as an audiobook on Amazon, Audible, iTunes, and Barnes & Noble.


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.

Terminal (Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper Book 4)
House of Whispers (Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper Book 5)

Now available on Amazon (Amazon UK).

Available as an audiobook on Amazon, Audible, iTunes, and Barnes & Noble.

The luxurious Lathrop Grand Hotel is a Savannah institution that has entertained guests for more than a century and a half, offering some of the finest accommodations in the city. Famously haunted, the hotel draws tourists from around the world eager to encounter its numerous ghosts. The hotel is also known for being honeycombed with hidden doors and secret passages, enabling staff to appear and disappear quickly as they attend to the hotel's guests.

Now some of the spirits in the Lathrop Grand have turned violent, even murderous. Ellie and Stacey must determine which ghost has become dangerous and remove it from the hotel before it can claim any more lives. They soon learn the hotel has secrets even darker than the notorious string of nineteenth-century murders that made it famous, and the powerful entities inhabiting it don't intend to leave without a fight.


The sixth Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper book is now available on Amazon (Amazon UK).

Available as an audio book on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.


It's October, and down at newly opened Pine Hollow Farm, the ghosts are running wild!. This “genuine” old-time family farm offers a big heap of fun fall activities. You can drink cider fresh from the orchard, enter a pumpkin-carving contest, and explore the five-acre corn maze. At night, if you aren't too scared, join the haunted hayride through the woods, featuring an eighteenth-century cemetery. According to local legend, the ghost of a horseman has ridden the old dirt road through the woods for nearly two centuries, menacing travelers. Hayriders beware!



Then the real ghosts start to come out, threatening visitors to the farm and the family who live there. Paranormal detective Ellie Jordan travels out to the remote farm to root out the dangerous spirits. Ellie and her assistant Stacey must move fast, because the night is coming when all ghosts will be at full strength and free to roam—the night of Halloween.


Lullaby (Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper Book 7)


Lullaby (Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper book 7) is now available on Amazon (Amazon UK link).

Available as an audio book on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.



Life is more difficult than ever at Savannah's only ghost-hunting detective agency. While Ellie copes with her mentor's departure and other unwelcome developments, she also worries about the supernatural injuries keeping her boyfriend caught in an endless slumber.

At the same time, Ellie and Stacey are called in to investigate an eerie entity haunting a baby's nursery room. The ghost appears late at night, its face barely visible on the baby monitor, and sings a chilling song.

Soon, Ellie learns there are more ghosts in the house, and at least one of them is a dangerous, child-hunting monster who must be stopped before it kills again.




The Keeper
(Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper 8) is now available on Amazon (Amazon UK).


Available as an audio book on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.

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.


The Keeper (Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper Book 8)


Now available on Amazon (Amazon UK).

Available as an audio book on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.


Ellie's new case takes her far out of town, to an historic but crumbling nineteenth-century skyscraper in downtown Atlanta. The reclusive, once-prominent family living at the top of the tower are experiencing paranormal disturbances that grow more threatening by the day.


Ellie and Stacey must unravel the hidden history of the tower and the ancestors of the family who occupy it—a history full of crime, corruption, wealth, and power. With floor after floor of dark, haunted spaces, the labyrinthine antique tower presents one of the greatest ghost-trapping challenges that Ellie has ever faced.




Now available on Amazon, Amazon UK
Available as an audio book on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.

Just outside the small but colorful mountain resort town of Foxboro, Tennessee, lies Dr. Weirdman's Mountain Museum of Monsters, Curiosities, and Ancient Mysteries. Once a major tourist attraction, it offers travelers the amusement of touring unusual underground caves and pseudo-scientific exhibits ranging from strange creatures to the supposed artifacts of lost civilizations.

Now the museum is a crumbling relic of an older age, fallen into disrepair. Its longtime owner has died, leaving it in the hands of a younger distant relative who knows nothing of how to run a failing tourist trap of a museum, but who is desperate to make a living and provide for his own children.  

The museum has a serious ghost problem, though, and Ellie Jordan is called in from Savannah to help. An unexpected old friend joins Ellie at the last moment so that they can spend a snow-filled Christmas together in the mountains...if the ghosts of the restless dead don't turn the holidays into a horrific tragedy.

The Monster Museum J. L. Bryan
Fire Devil (Ellie Jordan 11) JL Bryan


Now available on AmazonAmazon UK.


Available as an audiobook on: 
iTunes


Ellie's pursuit of a possessed friend and her own worst enemy takes her across the United States into forgotten corners of the countryside through haunted hotels, ghost towns, and strange highways, and toward the site of a horrific fire haunted by hundreds of spirits.



Together with her team, plus help from an eccentric exorcist from Texas, she prepares for the fight of her life, a fight destined since her own childhood, one that may finally set her free—if it doesn't kill her and everyone she loves.



Now available on Amazon (Amazon UK).



Available as an audiobook on:

The antebellum mansion sits isolated in the overgrown countryside like a forgotten temple. Within it lie the dark, twisting paths of a library full of secrets. Ancient and medieval manuscripts tell of wielding unnatural occult powers, of conjuring spirits and raising the dead, of making contact with supernatural realms usually forbidden to living mortals.


The house's recently deceased owner was a reclusive former professor who transformed his home into a sprawling and chaotic library, but his desire for hidden knowledge may have led him into madness, even death.


Disturbing specters haunt the new occupants of the house, who turn to paranormal investigator Ellie Jordan for help. Ellie must unravel the mysteries of the haunted library before she can banish its ghosts and make the house safe once again for the living.



Now available on

Amazon, Amazon UK



Available as an audiobook on:
Apple

The old campground in the mountains has a shrouded history wrapped in legend. Built near the mysterious mounds of a vanished people, the campground was once a popular summer destination for children, but closed long ago under tragic circumstances.


Josh and Allison Conner have moved out from the city to the old summer camp, inspired to create a retreat for children in need, a place to build skills, character, and confidence. They've brought their own children with them and now hurry to rebuild in time for the coming season and their first opening day.


But something lurks in the wilderness around the old summer camp, something that strikes against the Conners' best efforts to rebuild and restore. They feel watched, and then threatened, but after sinking their savings and their hopes into the camp they are unwilling to walk away.


Paranormal investigator Ellie Jordan must sort history from legend to determine what haunts the camp and how to fight it before it inflicts more harm on the well-meaning family attempting to bring life back to the remote campground.




Now available on Amazon (Amazon UK).


Available as an audiobook on:


Long ago, dreams glowed on the screen under the night sky at the old drive-in theater. Once an attraction drawing families and teenagers from miles around, the theater has sat dark and silent for years, its former bright, carnival-like atmosphere a distant memory.



A young family brings the forgotten theater to life with a new, modern vision for its future, but strange troubles plague them. Something from the past haunts the theater and won't leave them, or their occasional customers, alone. The family is living in the old theater manager's apartment located inside the drive-in's screen tower, so they enjoy no peace even when they go home after work late at night.



With disturbing supernatural activity threatening their small business and their family, they turn to paranormal investigator Ellie Jordan for help—but the mythic world of the movies has its own dark magic, and Ellie may not be prepared to face what awaits her when the sun goes down, the lights go out, and the show begins.




Now available on Amazon (Amazon UK).


Available as an audiobook on:
More than a century ago, the Sea Islands of Georgia's coastline were the playground of the ultra-wealthy. Carnegies, Morgans, Rockefellers and other aristocrats of the Industrial Age built luxurious southern beach retreats on islands like Cumberland and Jekyll to escape the icy winters of New York. In time, though, the grand mansions were abandoned and fell into disrepair, abandoned to the weather and the wilderness.

A secretive client hires Ellie Jordan to investigate one such island, home to a sprawling estate modeled after a royal hunting lodge. Weapons and artifacts from around the world adorn its grand hall. Finely furnished rooms devoted to leisure and games display the original owner's vast collection of hunting trophies, the preserved bodies of exotic predators from around the world, beasts with bared fangs and unblinking glass eyes.

Someone is trying to bring the neglected island back to life, but the dark shadows of its gilded past remain strong here, stalking the galleries and winding corridors. The mysterious grand lodge is more than it seems, and its restoration has unearthed horrific and unexpected evils. Ellie and Stacey must face the lodge's dark past and drive its paranormal inhabitants back into the world of the dead, before they can do more harm to the living.



Now available on Amazon (Amazon UK).

Available in audio on



Close your doors and cabinets tight, or Jack will climb out to see you tonight.



The former railroad stop of Timbermill, Georgia has grown ever more quiet and empty since its boom era ended decades ago. Reduced to little more than a ghost town, it is suddenly revitalized by suburban sprawl from the city of Savannah, its long-vacant storefronts gradually reopening as boutiques for weekend shoppers.



But Timbermill has a dark legend unknown to the newcomers. Stories whispered from one generation of the town's children to the next warned of a supernatural figure who stalked them by night. As the children grew up and moved away, the town shrank, windows were boarded over, and the old stories began to fade into the past. 



A recently relocated family with four children is restoring an antique house for themselves, but an unsettling figure from the local legend appears to be stalking them. They turn to Ellie and Stacey for help against an old evil that, while nearly forgotten, was never fully buried.


Cabinet Jack


Now available on Amazon (Amazon UK)

Available in audio on:

Audible (Audible UK)

Amazon (Amazon UK)

iTunes


Canterbury Gardens is a centuries-old plantation outside Charleston, South Carolina. Its aristocratic founders once hosted lavish banquets and balls among fanciful pleasure gardens, canals, and large-scale follies resembling ancient and medieval ruins.


Over generations of neglect, the winding paths of the gardens have become overgrown, its marble statues and columned buildings abandoned to the wild.


Now a family recovering from tragedy have devoted themselves to restoring the estate, but the ghosts of the past remain strong. Shadowy figures walk the labyrinth of overgrown gardens. A strange wishing well steeped in local legend attracts trespassers who climb walls and gates in their eagerness to throw in a coin and make a wish.


Paranormal investigator Ellie Jordan travels to study and confront the dark entities who stalk the house and grounds by night, terrifying the family who now live there. The secret history of the plantation proves as shadowy and labyrinthine as its maze of gardens. Enchanting on the surface, Canterbury Gardens was founded on the darkest of wishes, and every wish that comes true has its price.




Now available on Amazon (Amazon UK).
Available in audio on:


The old Heusinkveld mansion overlooks the mostly shuttered main street of the small town of Burdener's Hill. Once a testament to local wealth and aspiration, the brooding edifice now clings to life as the Sunshine House, a retirement home inhabited by an eccentric collection of locals bound together by fond memories of their shrinking hometown.


When a newly arrived resident finds herself tormented by a threatening specter from her past, paranormal investigator Ellie Jordan is called in to confront it. The entity puts up a strong fight, resisting capture, and soon more residents are in danger. With nowhere else to go, they need Ellie to remove the ghost before it inflicts serious harm or death on those who have made the strange old house their home.


Sunset House (Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper Book 18)
The Funtime Show


Available on Amazon (Amazon UK)

Come here, children,

Play with me,

I'm the friend in your TV...



The Calvert family's new home used to belong to the recently deceased creator of a forgotten children's program from the early days of television. The family's younger kids are fascinated by the basement rooms, a chaotic wonderland of discarded stage sets, props, costumes, and puppets.



At first, the parents are glad to see the kids put down their screens and play creatively with the old theatrical elements, but their performances and their experiences grow more disturbing over time.



In this house, the reruns of a dark past never stop playing, and paranormal investigator Ellie Jordan must protect the family from a malevolent presence trying to draw them into the infernal show.


Now available on Amazon  (Amazon UK).


In the early nineteenth century, hungry gold prospectors descended on Miracle Mountain in north Georgia, ripping open the ancient wilderness, driven by dreams of glittering fortunes. Local legends tell of mysterious events, like a young girl who defied death after toppling from the mountain's treacherous waterfall.



Today, tourists visit to see the legendary falls along with the blazing colors of the Appalachian forests in autumn. The rustic, antiquated Highwater Inn welcomes them, but specters from the past haunt the halls and terrify the guests and staff. Paranormal investigator Ellie Jordan arrives to help the owners, who are desperate to clear away the evil influences before they're forced to close down and abandon the struggling hotel.


Now available to pre-order on Amazon (Amazon UK) and Nook.

Come get scared...to death!

Open now through Halloween, Mortuary Manor is a walk-through haunted house offering frights and fun for those seeking a serious scare. The dead have taken over this lunatic labyrinth of a funeral home that's absolutely guaranteed to make you scream! (No refunds.)

Don't forget to visit our ghoulish gift shop and supernatural snack stand, if you dare!

UPDATE: This attraction is temporarily closed. Rumors of strange disturbances and injuries to our valued customers and scare actors have been greatly exaggerated, but we've brought in local experts to help with the recent problems. We'll reopen as soon as possible, and we'll be thrilled to resume tormenting you with the most terrific terrors anywhere in the greater Savannah area.


Coming in 2025

Robber's Road, Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper Book 22