Review: The Funtime Show (Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper #19) by J.L. Bryan

Title: The Funtime Show

Series: Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper #19

Previous books in this series: Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper (#1) | Cold Shadows (#2) | The Crawling Darkness (#3) | Terminal (#4) | House of Whispers #5 | Maze of Souls #6 | Lullaby (#7) | The Keeper (#8) | The Tower (#9) | The Monster Museum (#10) | Fire Devil (#11) | The Necromancer's Library (#12) | The Trailwalker (#13) | Midnight Movie (#14) | The Lodge (#15) | Cabinet Jack (#16) | Fallen Wishes (#17) | Sunset House (#18)

Author: J.L. Bryan

Genre: Adult, paranormal, horror

Publication date: July 25th 2023

Published by: J.L. Bryan

Source: eARC from author

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Synopsis: 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.

My rating: ★★★★☆

In this latest case, Ellie and Stacey head to a family’s home to investigate a creepy lurking shadow. What they find is a place filled with puppets... creepy puppets.

It turns out that the house and puppets previously belonged to someone who had a kid's puppet TV show back in the day, The Funtime Show. But Ellie and Stacey soon discover there’s more to these puppets than just their objective creepiness. One thing I like about this series and Ellie is that even though this is Ellie’s job, getting rid of ghosts, her client’s safety is always the number one thing, especially when there are kids involved. And this family has three of them! So when Ellie notices their attachment to these puppets (so much so that one of them got in trouble at school for, get this, excessive puppetry 😂), she and Ellie race to figure out what is happening in this house and protect the family from whatever malevolent spirit is lurking.

I really enjoyed this! The whole puppet thing was creepy, but I really enjoyed the story! The history of the house and the owner was complex, and messed up, honestly. I enjoyed unraveling the mystery there and seeing how all that affected the family that now inhabited the house. There was also one aspect of the mystery that I was not expecting but loved!

Egyptian mythology! Well, kinda. There were these binding spells and also the taking of certain parts of a soul, the ba and ka. The ancient Egyptians believed the soul was made up of different parts, two of those being the ba and ka. I loved the way this was incorporated into the story! I love mythology!

But yeah, I really enjoyed this! I love Ellie and Stacey and their banter, the story was fairly creepy with the puppets but also really interesting. And everything that happened was just insane! All the manipulation that went on was unreal! But I cannot wait for more Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper! I love this series!

Have you read this book? If so, what did you think about it? If not, what do you think? Does it sound like something you might want to read? Leave me a link to your review or comment below! 😊