Local Author Finds National Audience Through Ghost-Filled Urban Fantasy

When local author Jen Bair launched her Shady Spirits urban fantasy series last year, she expected modest results. Instead, the series — inspired in part by life in the Peachtree City area — has sold more than 25,000 copies in less than a year, drawing readers from across the country and around the world.

“I was hoping to sell like 500 copies by the end of the year,” Bair said. “So that was more than I was expecting. I’m still not quite sure what to do with that.”

A fast-paced series with humor and ghosts

Bair’s Shady Spirits series follows Enid, a cafe worker who can see and interact with ghosts — but not in the traditional sense found in many supernatural stories.

“In mine, the ghosts have a whole society, a whole community, a whole government,” Bair said. “They’ve got their own associations and businesses that they kind of start in their dead life.”

Rather than lingering quietly in the background, the ghosts drive much of the action, pulling Enid into conflicts that blur the lines between the living and the dead.

The tone blends fast-paced mystery and dry humor — similar to the comedic sensibility of Janet Evanovich — with a supernatural edge reminiscent of The Sixth Sense’s famous line, “I see dead people.”

“One of my taglines is, this is an urban fantasy series where the ghosts take a front seat in the action,” Bair said.

The books balance mystery, humor, and supernatural chaos with a protagonist who approaches problems deliberately.

“She only does dumb things when she has no other choice,” Bair said.

A fictional town with familiar rhythms

As the series unfolds, the fictional town of Peach Grove begins to feel familiar to local readers. While the town itself is imagined, its rhythms mirror those of Peachtree City and surrounding areas — from golf cart culture to close-knit neighborhoods where nearly everything is just a few minutes away.

“As the series progresses, it talks about golf carts and how they have golf cart parades,” Bair said. “We moved here about three years ago and just fell in love with the community.”

Later books reference nearby hiking areas and regional landmarks familiar to residents, including trails and creek-side preserves, as well as short drives into Atlanta for cultural outings. Bair said she enjoys letting readers explore places she knows well through the lens of fantasy.

From military intelligence to writing fiction

Bair’s storytelling has also been shaped by her own background. She grew up in a military family, later served in the military herself, and spent years moving frequently as a military spouse. Over the past 22 years, she said her family has moved 15 times.

“I’m a military brat, a military veteran, and a military spouse,” Bair said.

Before becoming a full-time author, Bair served in military intelligence with the U.S. Army, where she trained as a Korean linguist and lived in South Korea. She spent more than a year immersed in the language, studying eight hours a day as part of her service.

“I could speak pretty fluently at a third-grade level,” Bair said. “It’s a hard language.”

That background — analyzing information, working through complexity, and adapting quickly to new environments — carried forward into her approach to storytelling.

Writing amid family life

Alongside her career, Bair and her husband raised four children, whom she has homeschooled for more than a decade. Her children now range in age from 11 to 20, with the oldest currently in college.

Writing, she said, became something she could do regardless of location or circumstance — a creative constant during years defined by transition. She began by writing short stories and submitting them to anthologies to hone her craft before moving into full-length novels.

“I wanted to make sure my writing was strong before I put something out there on my own,” Bair said.

Writing fast — and often

Bair recently released the fifth book in the Shady Spirits series, with the sixth already available for preorder and four more planned for release this year.

“The first book I ever wrote, I wrote in a month,” she said. “I don’t do anything slow. Life is too short.”

She credits her pace to years of practice and a mindset that favors momentum.

A family effort with global reach

While Bair handles the writing, the technical and marketing side of self-publishing is a family effort. Her husband manages advertising campaigns that target urban fantasy readers worldwide.

“We advertise in the UK and in Australia and in Canada, Germany, America,” Bair said. “We get sales from India. We get sales from all over the world.”

The books are available through Amazon and Kindle Unlimited, where readers can access the entire series through a monthly subscription.

Writing for a wide audience

Despite the supernatural themes, Shady Spirits is written to be accessible to a broad age range. The series includes light romance but avoids explicit content.

“It is slow burn, closed door,” Bair said. “My kids all read these books.”

She described the books as suitable for older teens and adults alike.

What comes next

Bair plans to continue the Shady Spirits series in five-book arcs, with at least 10 books envisioned so far. Book six, scheduled for release in March, begins a new storyline following the resolution of the first major arc.

“The fifth book ends on a nice, cozy note,” she said. “And then book six kicks off a whole nother bunch of chaos.”