Ghouls Gone Wild (Ghost Hunter Mysteries, No. 4) by Victoria Laurie

2 out of 5 stars.

In this 4th book of the Ghost Hunter Mystery series, M.J. and her friends travel to a small town near Edinburgh, Scotland, to film their Ghost Hunting show, Ghoul Getters. While there, they find plenty of spooky action in a series of haunted caverns. But when they discover the body of a maintenance worker, the cause of death is reminiscent of an old legend involving a witch's wrath.

I usually like Victoria Laurie's books and was really looking forward to reading this one as I've enjoyed the others in this series so far. Unfortunately it turned out to be a major disappointment. It was pretty violent, which isn't typically a big deal for me, except her books are not usually like that so it came as a bit of a surprise. The dialogue at times was pretty juvenile. I started to get really tired of the word spooks. I also felt the characters really lacked in this book as well. Gilley's constant whining and melodramatics were a bit much. I found myself becoming more and more irritated with his character. His unrelenting terror of the paranormal continually makes you wonder why he even works for MJ in the first place. I liked Heath in her other book, but in this one I found him somewhat sleazy. I understand that Ms. Laurie is trying to incorporate some sort of love triangle, but MJ does in fact have a boyfriend and it seemed to me that Heath didn't respect that. It was a turn off. I even found myself disliking MJ herself. She went from a very strong female persona to kind of a mega b***h. She was snapping and lashing out at people throughout the entire book. She came off as selfish and arrogant. Everything had to focus on her. Even Heath's grandfathers spirit talked to her instead of his own grandson! That really didn't make a lot of sense to me. I also didn't care for the fact that her relationship with Steven was so non-existent in this book. I found that kind of odd. I think they spoke on the phone once the entire time she was in Scotland. If you are going to create a love triangle, it helps to include all people so you can actually get a feel for the character being torn in two. Once she landed in Scotland, she seemed to forget all about her boyfriend and since Steven was not there to give her direct attention, MJ immediately looked to Heath for that. It made her seem fickle. I had a hard time even finishing this book which is surprising because I usually can't get enough of Victoria's books. I'm hoping the next will be better and the characters will be a little more believable and little less self indulged.