Showing results by author "J. T. Ellison" in All Categories

How do you know whether a real-world situation calls for a storybook hero? Is there such a thing as a knight in shining armor, or does every good deed come with unintended consequences? With chilling insight, five bestselling crime writers explore what it means to rise to the occasion—and the space between intentions and results.

While the high-profile murder of a young country singer turns Nashville inside out, danger lurks in the woods beyond the city’s border. There was a witness to the terrible crime, a college student who stumbled onto the scene. When the girl goes missing, the police don’t know if she’s run for cover or been taken…or if something more sinister is happening. The truth will shatter Taylor’s career and bring her face to face with a deadly assassin who wants nothing more than to finish what they started.

We’ve all played the “what if” game. For Mia Jensen, “what if” is a fact of life. Dissatisfied with her choices, she often dreams about what could have been. Now she has the chance to know. But that knowledge is going to cost her dearly. Only through death can she fully realize the value of her life.

All of Nashville is on edge with a serial killer on the loose. A madman is trying to create his own end-of-days apocalypse and the cops trying to catch him are almost as damaged as the killer. Field of Graves reveals the origins of some of J.T. Ellison's most famous creations: the haunted Lieutenant Taylor Jackson; her blunt, exceptional best friend, medical examiner Dr. Samantha Owens; and troubled FBI profiler Dr. John Baldwin.

In the mid-1980s the Snow White Killer terrorized the streets of Nashville, Tennessee. Then suddenly the murders stopped. A letter from the killer to the police stated that his work was done. Now four more bodies are found, marked with his fatal signature. The residents of Nashville fear a madman has returned, decades later, to finish his sick fairy tale. Homicide Lieutenant Taylor Jackson believes the killings are the work of a copycat killer who's even more terrifying.

Homicide detective Taylor Jackson thinks she's seen it all in Nashville—from the Southern Strangler to the Snow White Killer. But she's never seen anything as perverse as The Conductor. Once his victim is captured, he contains her in a glass coffin, slowly starving her to death. Only then does he give in to his attraction.

It is Samhain - the Blood Harvest. Nonbelievers call it Hallowe’en. The night when eight Nashville teenagers are found dead, with occult symbols carved into their naked bodies. It’s a ritual the killers believe was blessed by Death himself. When children are victimized, emotions always run high, and this case has the public both outraged and terrified: a dangerous combination. Recently reinstated homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson knows she has to act quickly, but tread carefully.

The shot to the head didn’t kill Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson. But it will crack her psyche and take her to the very edge.In her showdown with the murderous Pretender, a bullet taken at close range severed the connection between Taylor’s thoughts and speech. Effectively mute, there’s no telling if her voice will ever come back. Trapped in silence, she is surrounded by ghosts - of the past, of friendships and trusts lost... of a lost faith in herself and her motives that night. When Memphis Highsmythe offers Taylor his home in the Scottish Highlands to recuperate, her fiancé can’t refuse her excitement....

It’s a hideous echo of a violent past. Across America, murders are being committed with all the twisted hallmarks of the Boston Strangler, the Zodiac Killer and Son of Sam. The media frenzy explodes and Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson knows instantly that The Pretender is back… and he’s got helpers. As The Pretender’s disciples perpetrate their sick homages – stretching police and FBI dangerously thin – Taylor tries desperately to prepare for their inevitable showdown. And she must do it alone. To be close to her is to be in mortal danger, and she won’t risk losing anyone she loves.

What does infinity hold? Does anything or anyone get buried and remain quiet for all time, or is death just a second life that lasts forever? From traversing the gnarled roots of trees reaching from the sand like claws, to the moment where one finds out the price of justice and who serves it, to a masquerade that can be murder—this collection was created to frighten, engage, entice and, worse yet, make you wonder what awaits you in eternity when your number is up.

Zack Aukey hates the holidays - despises them, actually. December carries painful memories of his first love Autumn Cleary, who left him during the holiday season. But when Autumn mysteriously shows up in Nashville on December 25 bearing gifts and apologies, Zack knows this is a holiday he won't soon forget.

American art student Evie Williams is studying abroad in Edinburgh and having the time of her life - especially when she falls hard for Thomas MacBean, a sexy art dealer with a Highlander's brogue. But as Thomas and Evie’s romance heats up, so does Evie’s fascination with a special exhibit of dark art at a local gallery.

A group of writers from Nashville pile into a car and head to the mountains of North Georgia for a work retreat - and a bit of drinking and gossip. They’ve booked a cabin in the woods with no internet and no cell service and, hopefully, no interruptions. Near the cabin, the friends discover the beautiful but decrepit Catwood Manor, abandoned decades earlier.

A writer finds a cave keeping a dark secret for nearly a century. A ghost in a Scottish castle seeks blood on a wedding day. A student abroad loses herself in a dreamy art dealer and his dark painting. An undercover cop searches for the lover who’s haunted him for years. These four stories from New York Times best-selling author J.T. Ellison reveal what happens when we allow ourselves to step toward the darkness - and find ourselves consumed with regret and doom.

The American South is rife with stories of a haunted past - especially its houses. In this eclectic and impressive collection, 13 novelists were asked to build their tales around the photo of a dilapidated mansion. They were given two requirements - the house must appear in the story, and it should be a Southern Gothic tale. And they delivered. From childish demons to a mad novelist, from the Mississippi Delta to the Appalachians, this collection from emerging voices and New York Times best-selling authors explores what happens when secrets that lie beneath the dust are disturbed....

FBI agent Nicholas Drummond and his partner, Mike Caine, are deep into an investigation of COE - Celebrants of the Earth - a violent group known for widespread bombings of power grids and oil refineries. While investigating a tip from a civilian who's overheard about a possible bombing plot, the Bayway Refinery in New Jersey explodes. Nicholas and Mike race to the scene and barely escape being killed by a secondary device.

Metro Nashville Homicide Lieutenant Taylor Jackson has reluctantly agreed to take the place of her fiancé, FBI profiler John Baldwin, as a presenter at the annual Freedom Conference, a foreign intelligence initiative attended by the best in the business of "clandestine services." Then a blizzard effectively isolates their hotel on the Chesapeake Bay: no power, no generators, and no possibility of outside help. When two guests go missing, and one of them is found dead in his room, Taylor discovers an assassin amongst the spies—one with a deadly score to settle.

When she recognizes the heroic stranger in a sensationalized news video, Addison Blake plans to use the information to her career’s advantage. That means returning to the hometown she left behind ten years ago, but her ambitions are more important than the ghosts of her past. She’s focused on breaking this story—as long as it doesn’t break her first.