Author: Victoria Laurie

Title: What's a Ghoul to Do?

Series: Ghost Hunter Mystery

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M.J., her partner Gilley, and their client, the wealthy, de-lish Dr. Steven Sable, are at his family's lodge, where his grandfather allegedly jumped to his death from the roof-although Sable says it was foul play.

But the patriarch's isn't the only ghost around. The place is lousy with souls, all with something to get off their ghoulish chests.

Now M.J. will have to to quell the clamor-and listen for a voice with the answers...

Its taken me a long time to put in the effort to read and write a review for self proclaimed psychic and author Victoria Laurie's book What's a Ghoul to Do because when I bought her books I wound up stumbling onto the whole Amazon/ DAM/ Reader vs. Author / Blog drama when I looked up her social pages since I wanted to know more about her.

I didn't care for what I learned. So I shelved her books and forgot about them for awhile.

I wasn't fully convinced that I was eager to read books with the Zombie/Ghoul themes since I'm not a big fan of the whole zombie movement.

I mean no insult to fans of both. My fault at the time for not knowing that there actually is a difference between the two.

Eventually I found my interest was piqued by someone who turned me onto Diana Rowland's Zombie series. I read the books and was forced to admit that I rather enjoyed them. A lot. So I figured since I still had Laurie's books on my shelves I might as well give those a go now that I was willing to give the undead a turn and now that Laurie's whole I'm out to punish all negative reviewers escapades was over - just in case I didn't like them either.

What's a Ghoul to Do was interesting - not really for me when it came to her portrayal of her characters personalities. MJ kind of felt too childlike/ valley girl for me to feel interested in her. I'm the complete opposite of that so its hard for me as a reader to relate to that kind of character.

Most of Laurie's characters felt like on one hand they were described as this fascinating person but on the other, the moment that character actually did or said something it reversed everything that had been built up about them that made me interested in them to begin with.

I do think that there is potential in this series being really good with some minor changes I just didn't think as the first installment to a series that it was all that great.

It probably would have been better suited as a YA book if Laurie took out the more adult content (its not explicit just adult geared) and kept her characters young since the maturity level of her characters feel more like children/teenagers than an adults.

The biggest reason I wanted to read the books - my wanting to get into the zombie/ ghoul thing... I have to admit I'm a poor candidate to judge the level of ghoulishness of this book. The only thing I have to compare it to is Rowland's books and unfortunately What's a Ghoul to Do doesn't even begin to compare. I hate that because its not fair to Laurie but that's all I have to base it on right now.

In my mind What's a Ghoul to Do just felt more like a clever title than actual ghoulishness in the book.

In the end I think I was the wrong reader at the wrong time for this book and this author.

But I encourage you to give a try. See what you think. Could be maybe you'll enjoy it more than I did. I'd be interested in hearing what your thoughts are if you have read it.

Until next time book lovers...

Krissys Bookshelf Reviews purchased a print copy for personal collection.

All thoughts, comments and ratings are my own.

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Well.  That was NOT a cozy.

On the plus side, I can use this book for my PopSugar Challenge for "A book that scares you" - because this book scared the bejeezus out of me.  I started reading it yesterday and foolishly took it to bed with me last night.  It didn't take long to realise I was going to need another book to read if I was ever going to get to sleep; the short trip down my dark hallway to my library nearly did me in.

Now I'll qualify myself: for those of you who regularly read horror, or hard-edged paranormal, this book is probably a walk in a sunny park; you might even find parts of it humorous.  But I was raised an old-school RC; coupled with a natural inclination toward skittishness and a wildly active imagination, let's just say I have a very healthy respect for traditional connotations of good and evil.

Still, just like my mom, I enjoy a good ghost story.  Once in awhile, I like reading something that brings on a bit of... let's call it tension.  I do not like being frightened.  This book straddled that line - even crossed it a bit when I was dumb enough to think I could read it at night.

M.J. and Heath go to her childhood home for her father's wedding and find themselves sucked into investigating the haunting of a house her soon-to-be stepmom is trying to renovate.  Only these aren't ghosts, these are demons.  

Ms. Laurie balances this book (and her others) with a constant message of love, but the trigger warning list in this book is long.  Ghosts, demons, ouija boards, child-harm:  this is a confronting story on a lot of levels.  I like that Ms. Laurie talks about the risk of ouija boards; she doesn't get preachy about it, but she makes it clear her feelings about kids playing with them.  

The plot is pretty twisted (see trigger warning list above) and the ending felt horrifyingly inevitable as it was happening.  Looking back at it, I can see a point in the story where I should have seen the ending coming but frankly I was too freaked out by the spooky and my deductive reasoning skills probably weren't as sharp as they could have been.

4 stars because ultimately it was a book that had me hooked but the character of Gilley, while nowhere near as obnoxious as usual, was still silly and childish.  By the end of the book I just kept picturing a fat little pig he ate so much ice cream and was constantly asking for more.

I hope Ms. Laurie doesn't feel like she needs to keep topping herself with this series - this one was just about as much as I could take and still say I enjoyed myself.  If she goes for anything more intense it might just put paid on my anticipation of the next one.  Thank goodness I have some nice, calming, British historical mystery with which to wind down with.

[PopSugar 2015 Challenge: A book that scared you.]

I had a bit of a dry spell (except for a Library sale, which I didn't post about because it took me forever to gently pull away all the stickers and remove the dingy plastic covers - by the time I was finished I lost the will to go on and just put 'em on the shelves).  The books are starting to trickle in again and this week I got the following (all cozies):

Musseled Out - Barbara Ross :  The 3rd of the series; #2 wasn't as good as #1, so we'll see.

Murder at the Brightwell: A Mystery - Ashley Weaver :  I've heard nothing but good things about this one.  I started it last night and so far it's excellent.

No Ghouls Allowed: A Ghost Hunter Mystery - Victoria Laurie :  I swore up and down I had this one on my TBR list and a few weeks back I was in the mood for a ghost story.  Imagine my aggravation as I combed through my TBR piles 4 times before admitting I only thought I'd ordered it.  I started it last night and it scared the bejeezus out of me!!! Gah!  I had to go get Murder at the Brightwell and start reading it because otherwise I was never going to get to sleep.

Don't Go Home - Carolyn Hart :  Newest Death on Demand.  The cover and title don't make it look very cozy.

Deadly Desires at Honeychurch Hall - Hannah Dennison :  2nd in the series; the first had many redeeming qualities.

Flourless to Stop Him - Nancy J. Parra :  The first one in this series had the MC get the everliving stuffing beat out of her in the last scene and it surprised me so much for a cozy it sort of hooked me.  

Oh Say Can You Fudge - Nancy Coco :  You know what, no matter how good this series is (or isn't - this is only #3) it's going to forever be known in my head as "the series with the stupid titles and asinine covers".

This week, I read 7 books, but two of those were re-reads so instead of breaking even, my TBR pile is two ahead.  C'est la vie.  ;)

I had just about given up on this series, but I thought I'd give this one a chance. I'm really glad I did.  The plot was great, interesting and had a lot of twists and turns.  None of the gibbering Gilly hysterics that made previous books so tiresome and a pace that kept me turning pages. I'd say this one ranks up there with the first in this series in humor, suspense and mystery.

Thanks Victoria Laurie for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

First off, I want to say that I LOVE the cover art. I just saw it while adding the book to my shelf. My ARC wasn't quite so colorful, ha!

This was my first book in the Ghost Hunter series. I know, where have I been? I had had the series recommended to me by the good folks at Murder by the Book, but I had been reading so many paranormal books then that I was a little over them. When I saw that Victoria was looking for readers for her new YA book "When" ( which I had been dying to read) I took action. When the author asked me to also read the "No Ghouls Allowed" I was hesitant. I knew that my friends had raved about it, so I said yes. Boy, am I glad that I did.

I have been raving all afternoon to several of my friends who had the misfortune of seeing me right I finished reading it. Ha!! I was seriously out of control. That's because it was THAT GOOD! It's like Scooby Doo (mentioned humorously in the book) except without the dog and the munchies, but with real ghosts. I was supposed to meet friends today at 5:00, but didn't get there until almost 6:00 because I wasn't going anywhere until I had finished reading this book! I highly recommend this book and will definitely be reading more of the series.

There was one negative to the book, however. I seriously think I gained weight just reading about all the food the that M.J.'s BFF, Gil ate. Ha!

Seriously go buy this book!