What a Ghoul Wants
Ghost Hunter Mystery, Book #7
By Victoria Laurie
ISBN# 9780451238979
Author’s Website: http://victorialaurie.com/
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi
*Beware of possible Spoilers*
What a Ghoul Wants is the seventh installment of Victoria Laurie’s fun series about a group of ghost hunters that go from location to location filming for their TV show, Ghoul Getters. While looking for spooks, they stumble upon various mysteries begging to be solved. Its Ghost Hunters meets Sherlock Holmes; an interesting concept for a series of books that I just couldn’t resist!
In this installment, M.J., Heath, and company have traveled to Wales to investigate Kidwellah Castle, known to be haunted by the Grim Widow, who drowns people in the castle’s surrounding moat. While the crew is there, bodies start showing up floating in the moat leaving the crew to wonder if the legends are true or if there is something even more sinister afoot.
First let me start off by saying that this is the first of the Ghost Hunter Mysteries that I have read. I was concerned that I’d be lost starting so late in the series, but I’m happy to report that wasn’t the case with this book. I felt like this truly was book one and it didn’t seem like I lost anything starting so late in the series. The author explains everything clearly and it was easy to understand the dynamics between characters and what everybody’s role was in the story.
I found the characters to be fun and engaging; especially Gilley, although he can get annoying at times, as he plays the scaredy-cat of the group. You will often see him shrieking like a girl and he constantly has to be convinced to do things. But the friendship between him and M.J. is undeniable and brings a little charm to the story.
I liked M.J. and Heath, but I would like to see more of them romantically speaking. Everything is about the case they’re working on and you don’t get to see anything behind the scenes. For example, they mentioned going to town and getting kicked out of pubs for the things they were trying to do ‘under the table’. I would have liked to have been present for one of the pubs where we could live through them and can see the interaction between the couple instead of M.J. just telling us that they got kicked out. Laurie could have detailed one incident and then had M.J. tell us how many more bars they got kicked out of before giving up and going back to the castle. I just want to feel their love a little more than I currently do and I think we just need to see them having fun together to accomplish that.
“I’m not quite sure which scout troop Heath belonged to, but it certainly wasn’t the “I will totally honor my previous promise of no hanky-panky in the shower” troop.”
I found the storyline of What a Ghoul Wants to be interesting and I had many theories about the dead bodies that were stacking up, and several of them were partially right, but I never got it 100% correct, and I wouldn’t have wanted to as it would have made the story boring.
Overall I enjoyed the story. It was good, but I kept waiting for that moment where something happened to throw me over the edge to loving this book, but it didn’t happen. But I liked the book nonetheless and would be interested in reading the next installment due out in January 2014.
