Two favorite ghostly series...

 

The Haunted Child by Dawn Merriman

Rylan Flynn nearly drowned when she was a kid, and ever since her near-death experience she's been able to see and talk to ghosts. This time she's hoping the dead can help her solve a murder. I really like this series. Rylan's a fun character, though she was a little stubborn and reckless at times in this one. Still, her interactions with all the different ghosts are always great. It's the living she has to watch out for. I've read four books in this series so far and enjoyed them all. They're fast and fun paranormal mysteries.  ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Fallen Wishes by J.L. Bryan

Ellie Jordan is a ghost hunter, investigating hauntings and trapping troublesome spirits. She's been hired by a young widow to find out the truth behind the entities stalking the ruins and gardens of a large plantation outside Charleston, South Carolina where the long-buried secrets are dark and terrifying. This is another fun one from J.L. Bryan. I love this series and always enjoy Ellie's suspenseful ghost adventures. And this one is a great October read even if it's summertime for Ellie and Stacey, her partner in ghosthunting.  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Happy Reading!

Want ghosts?

Eighteen months ago, Ellie Jordan and her boss came up against a ghost they couldn't trap. Now it's back, a creepy boogeyman that crawls out of the darkness to feed on people's fears, and it's terrorizing a new family. It especially likes children. Ellie, along with her ghost-trapping partner, Stacey, is determined to stop it before it hurts anyone else. There are just a few problems:  they don't know who it was, where it came from, or how to trap it. Luckily, they have the help of Jacob, a CPA who's also a psychic medium, and Michael, the cute firefighter who lives upstairs from where the main hauntings are taking place. And they're going to need all the help they can get because what they're fighting is very scary...and very dangerous.

"It can kind of take over certain doors, and certain small spaces, and use them as a crossing point. It's powerful. And it likes to terrorize living people. It ... drinks fear like a bat sucking blood. The fear makes it stronger, but also corrupts it. The stronger it grows, the more evil it becomes. If it ever was human, I'm not sure it even remembers that."

The Crawling Darkness by J.L. Bryan is another book from off my TBR shelf. I bought it because I love Bryan's Ellie Jordan series. These books are humorous, suspenseful, full of ghosts and always a lot of fun. And they take place in Savannah, Georgia, which makes for some great atmosphere. I really like all the characters, too; Ellie, especially, is tough, funny, and always up for the next ghostly challenge. The other thing I love about these books is that the endings never leave you hanging; they pack a wallop and always satisfy. So, if you love a good ghost story, I highly recommend The Crawling Darkness... and all the other books in this series.

Happy Reading!

Other Ellie Jordan novels:

Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper

Cold Shadows

Maze of Souls 

Boo!

Ellie Jordan investigates ghost sightings and haunted houses for a living. In Maze of Souls, she and her assistant, Stacey, are looking into the paranormal activity at Pine Hollow Farm. And there is plenty. From a Hessian highwayman on his ghostly horse to the bloody shadow of a young girl who was killed hundreds of years ago, Ellie has her hands full. Then there are all the angry ghosts in the old family cemetery who seem determined to push the living off their land.

This is another entertaining read from J.L. Bryan. There are some good ghostly scares and I enjoyed watching Ellie figure out the farm's history and how to keep all those ghosts from terrorizing the family living there. Here are a few fun highlights:

"This house had presence, history, layers of emotional energy accumulated over the generations. In the stillness and silence of the night, the soul of the house could emerge, along with any spirits that had been dormant during the day, waiting their turn to creep out under cover of darkness."

"I had to wonder how many layers of hauntings we faced. Was the horse-mounted ghost really a Hessian soldier or somebody from later years? Was the horseman connected to the bloody girl ghost at all, or were they separated by generations? Once a place is haunted, it tends to accumulate more ghosts over the years, the energy growing denser and darker like a spiritual black hole. Nothing attracts a ghost like a haunted house."

"The pale woman surged up from the darkness. Her face was a white death mask, but her hand was gleaming blood red, droplets of gore hanging from her long fingernails. I had a good look at those as they swiped at my face ... The air was instantly ice-cold all around me. I screamed and leaped back from the bed..."

Happy Reading!

Other J.L Bryan books I've enjoyed:

Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper

Cold Shadows

A haunting tale...

Title & Author:  The House Next Door by Darcy Coates
Genre:  Paranormal
First line:  I live next to a haunted house.

Summary:  Jo has never been inside Marwick House; her cats won't even enter its yard. And she's never met any of its occupants either, mostly because none of them stay for very long. Until Anna moves in. She seems nice, and a little fragile, and Jo tries to warn her that sometimes strange things happen in Marwick House, but Anna doesn't seem to mind. Not even when she sees the ghost of Helen Marwick who died a very unhappy death there years ago. But things change when Helen starts to make her presence known.

My thoughts:  I love novels about haunted houses and Darcy Coates writes some good ones. At first, Marwick House seems fairly benign. There's a little ghostly activity here and there--flickering lights, doors that open and close, haunting piano music in the hall--but it's not until the second half of the book that things ramp up and start to get really suspenseful and scary. I was intrigued by Marwick House itself, and I liked the quiet build up at the first, and how I almost felt sorry for Helen. Jo and Anna were a little too passive at times for me to really like them, but Jo made up for it at the end. And what an ending! Although I thought the The Carrow Haunt was better, I liked this ghostly tale enough to give it 3.5/5 stars.

Happy Reading!