Review--The Ghoul Next Door by Victoria Laurie

On a well-deserved hiatus from the ghoulish grind of their TV show, Ghoul Getters, psychic medium M. J. Holliday, her boyfriend, Heath, and her best friend, Gilley, are back home in Boston. But there’s no rest for the weary ghost busters. M. J.’s ex comes to her for help—his fiancée’s brother Luke seems haunted by a sinister spirit.

The crew sets up surveillance cameras to watch for the possessive poltergeist while Luke is sleeping. But when he goes outside in the middle of the night and returns hours later covered in blood, they are all very concerned—especially when the news reports the murder of a young woman in the neighborhood.

Now M. J., Heath, and Gilley must remain self-possessed as they try to stop a wicked ghost whose behavior is anything but neighborly.

Victoria Laurie's Ghost Hunter Mystery Series is by far one of my favorites! Since the beginning, these have always been one day reads for me. Then I had to get a job...sigh...and that pretty much came to an end sadly. Oh well. I still love this series! The Ghoul Next Door promised to be the best one yet, and why? Because M.J.'s ex, Steven Sable is making a return appearance. And with this surprise appearance also comes his fiancee! Yeah. Hadn't been expecting that!

Sadly, as I was reading, I came to page 242 only to move to the next page and find it 275 which then ended at 306 only to start back at 275. A whole 33 pages missing. Completely and entirely. I was devastated. Completely distraught! This is one of my all time favorite series and I was missing chunks of information! Despite that though I did still really enjoy the book. Sure, I had a gap of missing information and events, but I still enjoyed the story. Now let's move on to why!

So M.J., Heath and Gilley have returned home for some much needed R&R after shooting their new show Ghoul Getters. But it's not going to be the restful break they were wanting. In fact, Gilley was already planning a few readings for M.J. once things got settled, ever at work our Gilley is! But what becomes surprising is Steven asking for M.J.'s help. His fiancee's brother is being plagued with restless nights and no sleep and there's definitely something odd going on since Luke, the brother, is seeing shadows and hearing voices.

When the proof becomes evident that he is in fact being haunted, things go up a level in disastrous when a woman is found murdered and Luke is covered in her blood and becomes the number one suspect in the investigation. Now not only does M.J. have to help Luke deal with his ghost problem, but she also has to do what she can to help clear his name, because she knows he has to be innocent.

These mysteries are always so much fun! And I don't mean to say they are light hearted and happy, there's some pretty dark and gritty stuff going on. This isn't Scooby-Doo, the ghosts here are real and while they play a key role in the mystery and may or may not be playing a role in the murder, they are always connected to it somehow! Of course, for awhile I'm always left wondering...is the ghost really doing this?! The ghosts here aren't always the friendly type either, but M.J. does come across a Casper or two during the thick of things.

The pacing, as always, was awesome! Never really slow or dull, since M.J. and her friends have a lot of ground to cover. They start with very little info to work on, but yet can always managed to find the answer to things during their sleuthing! And it was when M.J. discovered a new name to work with on the case that the pages just flew out of the book into the ether. And we learned that during those pages, someone else got hurt. So yeah, you imagine how much I wanted to scream at that and having missed it. So weird, this rarely ever happens to me when I buy my books. There was literally one other time but with that event, the pages had been printed out of order for a few of them, they were are still there, just needed to skip over pages to read the correct ones. Here, I had nothing. 33 pages of missing events! In my one of my favorite series!! We're talking near tears people!

But again, I still LOVED the book. From what I could gather those 33 pages had a character hurt and probably just more investigating and a lead that obviously popped up and led M.J. to where she was on page 275. But still, this is really one of the most scariest things to happen to a reader--besides a series being canceled midway through.

Victoria really knows how to lure her readers in. Just when you think maybe things are going to be quiet and quaint during M.J. investigating, a ghost will pop up out of nowhere! And this particular ghost is downright creepy! He's freaking scary on all sorts of levels and he now has his eyes set on M.J. To what extent remains unclear, other than just to rattle her. It takes quite awhile before M.J. even gets a name to who this mad-ghost-man is! And the not knowing is sometimes far worse than the knowing!

More gushing on the series and characters though. I love the characters. Gillie is still hilarious! I love that man. He's just so funny and almost sibling like to M.J. in the way that he drives her crazy and doesn't even realize he's doing anything wrong! Like when he takes her shopping with her credit card and spends hundreds, if not thousands, of dollar on clothes and a Michael Kors purse! And Heath! Oh Heath! He really is a sweetie and I love that M.J. has found someone after her breakup with Steven--and I was really fond of Steven too! Not sure when it happened when I stopped hoping for those two to get back together. Probably the moment it became clear that there was something between Heath and M.J.!

I was expecting the who-done-it person either! It was surprising, but then with the missing pages and whatnot, I can't be sure if it should've been surprising or not. Possibly not, but don't know if I'll ever know. Because not only would I have to try to find those pages, I'm going to have to try to remember what was going on at the time and piece it all together. And my mind struggles to do such things like that. When you read as many series as I do, you kind of depend on the author and characters to give you the brief recap when it proves necessary.

Still enjoyed this one though! Even with the missing pages, what I read was lovable and enjoyable! So looking forward to more in this series, hopefully with all the pages next time around.


Overall Rating 5/5 stars