Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper Book Blitz {Guest Post & Giveaway}

I'm so thrilled to be participating in the Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper Book Blitz to celebrate J.L. Bryan's new, adult horror/paranormal book! Below you can learn all about this new book, read a fun guest post, and enter to win an ebook copy...

Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper #1

 by J.L. Bryan 

September 19th 2014

Genres: Adult, Horror, Paranormal

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 disturbance 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 confronted 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.

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Five Signs Your House May Be Haunted

by J.L. Bryan

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 is just weird!  If you have further questions, please read our pamphlet: My House is Haunted – What Now?  Good luck with that ghost!

From someone who has lived with ghosts for years, I think these are all really good signs of a haunting to look for...for reals ;)

 

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Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper is the first book in a new series by J. L. Bryan, the author of the Jenny Pox series and other novels.  He lives in the very hot state of Georgia with his family and no ghosts, as far as he knows.

Sign up for J.L. Bryan’s newsletter to receive a free ebook of short stories and hear about future releases in the Ellie Jordan series and other new books.

Win an ebook copy of

Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper!

J.L. Bryan has generously offered one e-copy of his new book for one of you cupcakes.

DETAILS

-open to anyone who can read ebooks

-ends 10/3

-must be 13+ to enter

-winner will be emailed and must claim prize within 48 hours

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Guest Post and Giveaway: Heather Brittain Bergstrom, author of Steal The North

I'm pleased to have Heather Brittain Bergstrom stopping by today with a wonderful Guest Post and Giveaway....

Steal the North

by Heather Brittain Bergstrom

April 10, 2014

Viking/Penguin

A novel of love in all its forms: for the land, for family, and the once-in-a-lifetime kind that catches two people when they least expect it

Emmy is a shy, sheltered sixteen-year-old when her mom, Kate, sends her to eastern Washington to an aunt and uncle she never knew she had. Fifteen years earlier, Kate had
abandoned her sister, Beth, when she fled her painful past and their fundamentalist church. And now, Beth believes Emmy’s participation in a faith healing is her last hope for having a child.

Emmy goes reluctantly, but before long she knows she has come home. She feels tied to the rugged landscape of coulees and scablands. And she meets Reuben, the Native American boy next door.

In a part of the country where the age-old tensions of cowboys versus Indians still play out, theirs is the kind of magical, fraught love that can only survive with the passion and resilience of youth. Their story is mirrored by the generation before them, who fears that their mistakes are doomed to repeat themselves in Emmy and Reuben. With Louise Erdrich’s sense of place and a love story in the tradition of Water for Elephants, this is an atmospheric family drama in which the question of home is a spiritual one, in which getting over the past is the only hope for the future.

What people are saying about Steal the North:

“A heartrending exploration of longing, loyalty and love. With palpable sympathy, Bergstrom captures the rugged and desolate atmosphere of eastern Washington and the distinctive people who call that place home.”
—Christina Schwarz, bestselling author of Drowning Ruth andThe Edge of the Earth

“A shimmering debut about the ties that bind, and the bonds that save us, especially when we least expect it. Shattering, romantic, and deeply profound, (and how many books can claim such adjectives?) Bergstrom’s novel lays a dazzlingly original claim to the unpredictable landscape of the human heart.”
—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Is This Tomorrow and Pictures of You

“In Steal The North, Heather Brittain Bergstrom has written the kind of debut novel one longs to read—full of crooked fates, hopeful hearts, and the bitten courage it takes to thrive—a tale, ultimately, of redemption.”
—Carol Edgarian, New York Times bestselling author of Three Stages of Amazement

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The First Step to Becoming A Young Heroine

by Heather Brittain Bergstrom

I think for many a young girl, like my protagonist, Emmy Nolan, the first step to becoming a heroine (at least of her own life) is standing up to mother. I write this as a mother. Emmy’s mom, Kate, has made all the decisions for her, and many of these important decisions Kate had a right to make as Emmy’s caretaker. Others she did not—for example, not allowing Emmy to embrace or even explore spirituality. Emmy is obedient, for the most part, to her controlling mom. But even daughters of less overbearing moms often go away to college unable to make a move or the smallest decision without mother’s approval. I am guilty myself of being a hovering parent. By sixteen, Emmy knew one day soon she’d stand up to her mom, but she also knew it would have to be over something more significant than clothing choices or even picking which high school to attend. At the end of Steal the North, love triumphs (as it always should after great adversity). But equally important, Emmy makes a bold, decisive move on her own. She leaves her mom’s path and starts etching out her own. She take possession of her own life. That is hard to do, especially for kids nowadays (thanks to hovering parents). But it is an absolute triumph: with possession comes accountability, creativity, and growth. Emmy may not slay a dragon, but, in my opinion, she does something equally brave by taking possession of her life. By the end of the novel, the North of the title has come to stand for, among other things, Emmy’s right to decide her fate. She steals this—in the same way Coyote steals a blanket or Raven steals the sun.

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Heather Brittain Bergstrom grew up in a small farming town in eastern Washington, located between the two largest Indian reservations in the state. Her family has deep roots in the Pacific Northwest, and she remembers her grandmother telling stories of how the Snake River used to flood their house every spring. For much of Bergstrom’s childhood, her parents were members of a fundamentalist Baptist church where she attended school in an unaccredited basement academy. Bergstrom has worked as a truck stop waitress and as a teacher. She has won multiple awards from Narrative Magazine, including first place in the Fall 2010 Story Contest. Four of her short stories can be found online at Narrative. Leslie Marmon Silko chose a story by Bergstrom to win the Kore Press Short Fiction Chapbook Award. She has also won writing awards from The Atlantic Monthly and The Chicago Tribune, as well as other places. One of her stories was picked as a notable story in the Best American Short Stories 2010.  Steal the North is her debut novel and first published book. Bergstrom currently lives in the Sacramento Valley with her husband and two children. She returns often to the Pacific Northwest to visit the rivers and to feel the wind in the canyons and coulees.

Win a finished copy of Steal the North!

The awesome people at Viking/Penguin have generously offered up one book for one winner.

DETAILS

-US only (no P.O boxes)

-ends 4/18

-must be 13+

-winner will be emailed and must claim prize within 48 hours

-Word Spelunking is not responsible for lost, damaged, stolen prizes

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