Curious One! I went ahead and caved! I just finished the second Ellie Jordan Ghost Trapper book, Cold Shadows, and you wouldn’t believe how fun it was!
The First Part of Cold Shadows
The story of the haunting itself was heartbreaking, but we got the chance to delve deeper into J.L. Bryan’s ghost hunting world; and all of his characters that rejoined us from the first book were outstanding.
Cold Shadows begins with a visit to the Paulding’s residence. It belongs to their cousin, but she allowed them to stay there rent free if they kept up maintenance and such. The house is definitely haunted. There is so much going on, I’m surprised they’ve stayed there for two years!
Their first thought is that Juniper, the teenage girl, has created a poltergeist. Poltergeist’s aren’t created intentionally, but by charged emotions creating a psychic discharge.
Juniper is what one could consider the very typical account of a thirteen-year-old girl who can’t get what she wants, so she rebels. I kind of felt like it wasn’t all her fault though, even from the beginning. Like she wasn’t always in control of the extent of her emotions. Like an overreaction to everything.
The next day they do research and come up with the Ridley family. Mother, Father, two young boys and a little girl. The father died in what appeared to be a suicide, the mother and two boys drowned in a marshy pond out back and the little girl was found strangled in an upstairs closet. What was most concerning was that the boys were named the same as Crane’s (the little boy of the client’s) invisible friends. Stacey and Ellie set up their cameras for their first night of observation and talked with Juniper about doing an ESP test with Calvin Eckhart, the boss and owner of Eckhart Investigations.
The First Night
During the first night, quite a bit happened. The two boys roamed the whole house before playing with the games that they set out as bait. But then the dark man from the craft room came out and the boys fled back to the attic, which appears to be where they take up camp and hide. The dark man, though, was terrifying. He had a studded belt that was obviously meant for nefarious things and his dark weight was so bad that it made Ellie freeze in spot.
Juniper took the tests the next day, but came out of it not showing any signs of psychic awareness. Which is odd, considering that poltergeists always come from young females.
Crane, on the other hand, showed definite signs of being psychically gifted.
That night, Juniper helped Stacey and Ellie in the attic and witnessed the dark man, Isaiah Ridley, attacking them. Juniper seems smart and insightful, truly wanting to help them free the spirits.
Afterwards, there is a ghost outside, a female ghost banging on the windows. Ellie goes out to find her and discovers it is Catherine Ridley. The mother of the boys and young girl – wife to Isaiah. Catherine pointed towards the roof and Ellie looks up to find Crane, the Paulding’s little boy on the edge of the roof, waiting to jump and kill himself. Crane tells them that Noah and Luke, the little boy ghosts, dared him to do it and if he doesn’t, then they will call him chicken. They want Crane to be like them. Ellie made up her mind at that point that the two children ghosts were now enemies, not the Casper-like troublemakers that they came off as. They had tried to convince Crane to kill himself, so they just moved up the list to enemy number one.
The First Task – Catch the Dark Man
The dark man is the one who is abusing the boys, even in death. They set up a trap the following night.
Things don’t always go as planned though, do they…?
Jacob came over to help at this point and during the walkthrough he confirms most of what they were assuming and putting together themselves. Crane really connected to him, which was nice to read about.
Crane was understandably a bit annoying to me, to be honest. He is obviously plagued by the two boy ghosts and two people who know things about the ghost world come in to help and he is yelling at them, causing problems, and not being helpful at all. Even hindering, to be honest. And I get it, he’s eight, he’s young and he’s being manipulated and it is taking too much of a toll on him, but you would also like to think that he would want to help as much as possible. Just saying…
So that night they set up the trap to contain the evil ghost of Isaiah Ridley. Except, it didn’t work…
Ellie was in the bathroom when Eliza (the little girl) showed up. She attacked Ellie, almost killing her. She threw water around, broke the tripods and cameras set up by the craft room and tried to drown Ellie in a pool of water on the floor of the bathroom.
During her struggle and fight with the evil ghost of Eliza (who admitted to killing her whole family) Isaiah was trapped successfully.
Except…the trap then began to move. It bounced and smashed and jumped and slammed into the walls and over the stairs until finally the lid to the trap blew off and Isaiah escaped.
At this point in Cold Shadows, Ellie was getting pissed off. Naturally! I mean, come one! What more could go wrong with this haunted house?
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Beyond the First Attempt to Trap
Jacob and Ellie went back up the stairs to trap the ghosts…again…
Ellie tells Jacob to find the little girl’s ghost, Eliza, and to tell her when he does. She will keep Isaiah busy while he looks for her in the cabinets she hid in.
Juniper, being the “stupid” teenager she is, snuck away from her family downstairs to come “help” Ellie and Jacob.
Jacob found Eliza and when Ellie’s hands brushed Jacob’s she saw what really happened the night they all died.
Eliza was hiding in her cabinet, clutching her doll to her chest while her mother and father were yelling. Her mother shot Isaiah and after she left the room, Eliza came out of hiding and saw what had happened to her father. Many days later, she watched her brothers and mother gathering firewood by the pond out back. None of them grieved for their father (because they were abused by him), but Eliza didn’t understand. She cared and loved her father and inside, she knew her mother had killed him and that nothing was being done about it. That was when she felt the poltergeist coming out. It moved towards her family with all of her bad emotions; the hate and the fear and the sadness of losing her father. The poltergeist drowned them. But her father’s ghost saw it happen and thought it was her who killed them, so he waited for her and when he found her, he punished her, just like how he punished his sons and wife in life. He killed Eliza with his metal studded belt…
The First Faint in Cold Shadows
Ellie talks to Eliza’s ghost, hoping to coax her into the trap so that she can be taken to a safe place (one of those graveyards from the first book) to live a free life.
Jacob had taken over fighting off Isaiah with the help of Juniper. Until Juniper passed out.
Ellie confronts the poltergeist now, fighting in a battle with it again. Ellie was thrown around the house as the poltergeist in the disguise of Eliza began tormenting and terrorizing her. She was thrown through the roof and was hanging from the gutter when Poltergeist Eliza exploded.
Jacob came to the rescue and helped her get safely back inside. His skin was full of pellets and marks from the metal belt of Isaiah. Juniper had woken enough to help convince the real Eliza to go into the trap.
Catherine’s ghost was walking up the stairs now, finally free to come save her sons.
But that was when they discovered that Crane was missing now.
With Isaiah’s ghost still hiding somewhere in the house and the boys still determined to convince Crane to join them in death to take Isaiah out, Ellie and Stacey rushed up the stairs to the attic and were horrified by what they saw.
Crane was slowly cutting his wrists and arms open with a broken angel wing. Isaiah came into the attic as well, and in an attempt to distract Isaiah from Crane, Stacey and Ellie started to yell and direct his attention towards them and his ghostly sons.
It was then that Catherine came into play, finally making it up the stairs. Catherine came and took the boys AND Isaiah’s ghost and led them down the stairs, out the front door, and into the dark water of the pond where they had died.
Finally, Catherine was finally able to save her entire family from Isaiah, even in death, and it was honestly a beautiful play-out of justice.
Stacey was finally asked out by Jacob too. Had to include that tidbit here, hah!
So, in the end, they didn’t have to dispose of Eliza in the graveyard. She actually was able to move on to wherever ghosts move on to. She was no longer in the trap and Ellie felt happy that she was finally able to find the peace she deserved.
The final page left us with some resentment on Ellie’s end towards Jacob and Stacey (I think Ellie will end up together with someone at some point in this 14-book series, should happen at least once relatively soon), but anyways, we were left with some hope for Ellie in the romance department when she came to realize that “…nights were growing a little too long, and they could use a little light.”
Final Thoughts on Cold Shadows
And there we have it, Curious One!
Cold Shadows was truly a fun read. I enjoyed how the characters still grew and learned some and since it was only the second book, I didn’t think it was too annoying or repetitive yet. As of now, the Ghost Trapper series by J.L. Bryan is still an amazing series that both young readers and adult readers alike can enjoy.
I think it’s inspirational how accurate the series is for the reader. We are able to realistically believe that what Stacey, Ellie and Jacob are doing and using for ghost trapping could be implemented. I’m not saying that a ghost trap with three separate walls and a time delay device to stamp the lid shut will trap a ghost long enough to release it in a graveyard where they can’t escape, but I am saying that it’s believable that a device could exist and work in the same general way.
I am always open-minded when it comes to science fiction. If someone can’t imagine it, then how can it be possible? And at the same time, if someone CAN imagine it, then isn’t it reasonable that it could be possible? How has most of technology been created if not for someone thinking the impossible to be possible? How would the world evolve and adapt if you can’t have an imagination?
And why does it have to stop at ghosts? Every myth and legend passed down through the generations has the chance to be based off a real entity. Who is to say that faeries and angels, shifters and blood-suckers don’t exist in some form?
Can you imagine a world where these ideas were a reality?
I think anything is possible and that is where my love for stories grows more and more with each book I pick up. Love and betrayal, adventure and pain, the unknown and magic do exist today. All we have to do is open a book to feel it. To experience it. To remember it.
Have a beautiful week, Curious One and remember to always have hope.
…it’s time for another book…
Check out J.L. Bryan at the following links:
Website: http://jlbryanbooks.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/J-L-Bryans-Books-123417766958
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