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

As a medical examiner, Samantha Owens knows her job is to make a certain sense of death with crisp methodology and precision instruments. But the day the Tennessee floods took her husband and children, the light vanished from Sam’s life. She has been pulled into a suffocating grief no amount of workaholic ardor can penetrate - until she receives a peculiar call from Washington, D.C. On the other end of the line is an old boyfriend’s mother, asking Sam to do a second autopsy on her son.

When Dr. Samantha Owens' homicide detective friend, Darren Fletcher, invites her to look over the evidence of a routine police investigation, she jumps at the chance and immediately realizes the crime scene has been staged. What seems to be a clear case of murder/suicide - a crime of passion - is anything but....

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.

It was a murder made for TV: a trail of tiny bloody footprints. An innocent toddler playing beside her mother’s bludgeoned body. Pretty young Corinne Wolff, seven months pregnant, brutally murdered in her own home. Cameras and questions don’t usually faze Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson, but the media frenzy surrounding the Wolff case is particularly nasty…and thorough.

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.

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.

Dr. Samantha Owens is starting over: new city, new job, new man, new life. She’s trying to put some distance between herself and the devastating loss of her husband and children - but old hurts leave scars. Before she’s even unpacked her office at Georgetown University’s forensic pathology department, she’s called to consult on a case that’s rocked the capital and the country. An unknown pathogen released into the Washington Metro has caused nationwide panic. Three people died - just three. A miracle and a puzzle....

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.

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....

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....

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.

A great writer knows when to deliver a juicy plot twist. But for one author, the biggest twist of all is her own murder. With twenty hit titles, and a highly anticipated movie tie-in, celebrated novelist Columbia Jones is at the top of her game. Fans around the world adore her. But on the final night of her latest book tour, one face in the crowd makes the author collapse. And by the next morning, she’s lying dead in a pool of blood.