A really well written and perfectly executed psychological suspense story! It was different and unique and I absolutely loved it!!

Thx to Netgalley, Ballantine Books and Julia Heaberlin for this ARC. Story is one of mystery and suspense. Characters are developed as the story continues to develop and surprise the reader. Loved this and it’s a great pick for a book club. So many interesting twists and turns.

Carl Feldman is a retired photographer who has been acquitted for murder, diagnosed with dementia and is currently residing in an assisted living facility.

Grace is a young woman, convinced that Carl is the killer of her older sister Rachel when Grace was just 12 years old. Grace, out for revenge, pretends to be his daughter so that he can be released into her safe keeping. The two set off on an eventful road trip revisiting all the missing girls Grace believes he has killed.

A fascinating story about the relationship which develops between the two and keeps you turning page after page to find out what comes next.

Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing a preview copy.

This is my first read by this author but definitely won't be my last!

I knew from the very first chapters that I was going to enjoy this book. Grace was only 12 when her older sister went missing, presumed dead when no body turned up. So for years Grace's obsession was to find out what happened to Rachel and find her killer. Her obsession takes her to a man she believes is the killer, a renowned photographer, Carl. So she pretends to be Carl's daughter, because he is now living in a home where convicts with dementia live. This is where the story unfolds as Grace and Carl take a road trip so Grace can get some answers. This was another slow burn type of book. Not a lot happens but you get so invested in the story that you are just dying to know the end result. I enjoyed the stunning pictures that were throughout the book--added to that haunted feeling you get while reading. Another enjoyable read.

*Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this suspenseful page-turner. Once they were on the road, I couldn't put it down! On the trail to find out what really happened to her missing sister, Grace manages to deceive many different types of individuals along her journey. I was a little confused about the map - maybe I am as disoriented as Grace, when it comes to reading maps of an unknown area. The little twists and turns throughout the book kept me guessing what was coming next. Is he a good guy? A bad guy? Is this a delusion? Will she ever find out the truth? Thank you, NetGalley, for the chance to review this book!

I received this book as a galley copy from NetGalley - and I appreciate the opportunity to read Paper Ghosts. However, I didn't finish this book, as I was unable to suspend disbelief in the subject matter. A young woman sets out to avenge her sister's death and knows who the killer is. He is living in a half-way house and she contacts his group home leader and is able to remove him from the home to "refresh" his memory about his crimes. Difficult to believe.

This was a really atmospheric novel, with a gripping, creepy plot and engaging characters. I kept guessing until the end. Recommended!

Looks can be deceiving. The main character, who for the most part remains nameless as she assumes different identities to suit her needs, delves into the mystery of her missing sister.

After over a decade of research and countless hours spent planning, training and preparing, the reader embarks on a young woman's journey to determine if a potential serial killer with dementia was the person who abducted and murdered her sister.

Carl Louis Feldman is a published photographer with photos that seem to be related to the untimely demise of several young women. Carl now lives in a half-way house claiming he has dementia. As the story unfolds the truths or ghosts in his photos are revealed.

A truly haunting book that grips you until the end.

I had liked ‘Black-Eyed Susans’ by the same author well enough, and I thought I’d like this one as well, but unfortunately, it wasn’t the case. As evidenced by the time I needed to finish it, that wasn’t because I had too much work and no time to read, but because it kept falling from my hands and I’d reach something else to reach instead.

It started well enough, and I thought that the story would be a game of cat and mouse between the main character and the suspected killer. However, while I kept waiting for said character to reveal her hand—for instance, to show that she had made this or that mistake on purpose, in order to better turn the tables—such moments never happened. I think this is where it went wrong for me, and I believe the first-person narration wasn’t an asset in this case: with a third person POV, I could’ve been fooled into thinking the ‘heroine’ knew what she was doing, since I wouldn’t have been completely ‘in her head; but with first person, it’s more difficult to fool the reader...

So, well, I wasn’t fooled. In spite of all her alluding to her ‘trainer’ and to how she had taught herself to face various difficult situations, she wasn't really one step ahead. Perhaps in the very beginning, but this fell down the train as soon as Carl started coming up with new ‘conditions’ along the way, and she was totally taken aback, and... just relented, or protested weakly. That didn’t fit my idea of someone who had planned carefully, or whose plans were unravelling but who still had the savvy to bounce back.

Also, I wasn’t convinced at all by the twist at the end. Something you can’t see coming because there was never any hint of it throughout the story, is not what I call an actual twist, but cheating the reader. (Now, when I read something and I’m all ‘a-ha! So that’s why she did this in chapter2, and said that in chapter 6, and that character did that in chapter 14’, well, that’s a proper twist.)

Conclusion: 1.5 stars. Too bad.

This was another suspenseful book by Julia Heaberlin. Grace stalks Carl because she suspects him of killing her sister. She manages to take him out of his half-way house on the pretense that she is his daughter. They embark on a roadtrip where she tries to learn the truth about her sister and whether her suspicions of Carl being a serial killer are correct. I'm going to have to read it again and see if there are hidden clues that I missed in the solving of the disappearance and/or murder of the women who's picture Carl has taken.

The book is billed as a "gripping thriller about a man who may or may not have dementia—and who may or may not be a serial killer". I have loved Julia Heaberlin's three prior books, and feel this is her best yet. This suspense novel kept me guessing right up until the end. Thanks to the publishers, I received a copy of “Paper Ghosts” from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review. Receiving this book has had no effect on my review.”

Grace lost her older sister when she was 12 years old. Rachel left to babysit but never came home and was never found. Grace took it upon herself to discover the missing links to find her sister--a plan that unknowingly painted the trajectory for her life.

We walk into the story after Grace has put a plan into motion to get the man she believes may be her sister's killer to confess. The only problem is that man has been absolved of other murders in the past with his wit and is now suffering from dementia. But Grace doesn't believe it, there are too many tells that she has observed during her time pretending to be his daughter for him to really be losing his memory and mind. Can she pull the murderer out without being harmed herself?

Why not take him on a drive and see if she can pull his memories to the forefront?

Grace, the younger, obsessive, sister finally, in the end, finds what she is looking for-- but what will it cost her to get there?

This book was not at all what I expected. There are so many twists and turns in this story... the entire read I was waiting for Grace to break Carl or for Carl to jump out of his diagnosis and remember who he was. Some of both happen. But the story I thought throughout the entire book was not at all the conclusion. By way of plot twist, this is an excellent book.

"Bad people are to be found everywhere, but even among the worst there may be something good."

"Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting"

This novel was so well written and kept me up till 2 a.m just to finish. I had to know how it ended, the whole time i was reading i could not figure out where this story would take me. Adding the black and white photos and Grace's notebook entries to the story was a nice touch, really made the story come alive for me.

Grace's older sister, Rachel, who has been missing since Grace was 12, is presumed dead and the person most likely responsible is Carl Feldman, a well known photographer, who is diagnosed with dementia. He is later acquitted on a murder of another young women and put into an assisted-living facility. Obsessing for years over what happened to her sister she one day seeks out Carl and claims to be his daughter. In hopes to jog his memory she wants to take him on a road trip to various stopping points where women have vanished. Those same stopping points are also in photographs he has taken. Believing he has killed these various women who have gone missing in Texas she hopes to prove he is in fact the killer and hopefully get justice for her sister. Carl of course has no memory of these killings and is skeptical that she really is his daughter but agrees to this road trip but she has to meet some of his conditions first. She of course agrees, she has been waiting/preparing/training for this day. As the trip progresses, she sees moments of lucidity and how he's keen to detail. Which leads you to ask Does he even have dementia? Could he actually murder all these women?

Will this game Grace is playing actually lead her to answers or will she be next in this list of missing women?

I cant stress enough how great this book is. The author did a great job of keeping you intrigued, giving you small clues to whats going on without actually giving away anything, and bringing the story alive in each page.
Towards the end it stopped being about whether or not Carl was a serial killer and became about the relationship he and Grace had formed, as messed up and crazy as that is.

5 STARS!! Thank You to NetGalley and everyone involved i absolutely enjoyed this one. Great start to the New Year!!!!!

The premise of this book sounded a lot better than the execution. Overall it read a bit slow with the same situation happening over and over again. I understand why the protagonist was searching for her sisters potential killer, but the reasoning behind why she chose Carl didn't really add up.

Abandonment Alert
Oh my. I've had this book for weeks... I pride myself on being able to finish a standard novel in one to two days. After reading this book off and on for three weeks, I abandoned it. I believe this is a first for me. I've read some horrible books before, but continued on with a hope of revitalization. Alas, that hope has been extinguished here after approximately 2/3 of the way through. It just drones on and on. The only mystery is, did he or didn't he? To be so well planned of an adventure, why is she so careless? I'm not buying into the story, and at this point I don't even care why, when, or how. While the concept of the plot is entertaining, the pages are not.

Imagine your sister was kidnapped years ago and was never found. Now imagine you are consumed with finding out what happened to her and that you will stop at nothing to know. That is basically the premise to Paper Ghosts.


Throughout the book, written in first person, you don't know the character's name. She is an adult now, but never got over her sister's disappearance. Who would? But, this woman takes everything to the extreme. She thinks she knows who may have taken her sister, but after year and years of research and planning, she thinks she's ready to prove it.


She has her eyes set on an aging, semi dementia suffering photographer, Carl, who was acquitted of one major crime already. He is now in an assisted living home where she actually plots to get him out and travel around the country to different locations in hopes of jogging his memory of, not only her sister, but other missing girls she feels he may have had something to do with their disappearances as well.


They travel to the locations where the other girls went missing and along the way, she can't figure out whether Carl is faking the dementia or if he truly is struggling.


So the question here is, will she ever find out what happened to her sister and the other missing girls? Is she safe with Carl? Could she be his next victim? What else will she find out along her journey?


My two cents: I thought the premise was a tad far fetched. You're going to scheme and be able to pull of taking a possible dementia patient out on the road in hopes of finding out what happened decades ago? Also, this took me way too long too finish. I love to read and this was one of those books on my Kindle where I would look down at the percentage finished, I was a little surprised wondering how much more could really happen.


Now, you might think I didn't enjoy this book. I actually did like it. I think it got better after I got over the halfway point. I did want to know what happened, but just thought the whole thing was just a little too unrealistic. However, I think it will do well upon its release.


I was so happy to get an advance copy from the publisher through NetGalley. Thank you to Netgalley and Random House. No review was required.

Julia Heaberlin's novels are set in Texas and radiate her attachment to the state and the wide assortment of people who inhabit it. My favorite is still Black-Eyed Susans, but Paper Ghosts is and entertaining puzzle involving Grace, a young woman whose beloved older sister disappeared when Grace was twelve.

Grace has spent the intervening years searching for clues, determined to discover what happened to Rachel. Carl Feldman, a gifted documentary photographer, was once suspected of the murder of several young women across the state. Now, he is an old man who suffers from dementia.

Grace considers Feldman a good possibility to have kidnapped and murdered her sister. She visits the home where he is being cared for claiming to be his daughter. He agrees to accompany her on a road trip to visit the locations of some of his eery photographs. At times, Carl seems a bit lost, at other times, you question the dementia diagnosis and worry about what Grace has gotten herself into. After all, if Carl is guilty, she has put herself in a dangerous situation.

While parts of the narrative are fascinating, there are some slow and repetitive sections as well. From Galveston to Marfa, the two tour the locations of missing women and of many of Carl's photographs.

I liked this novel despite some slow spots and an ambiguous conclusion, in which you learn some answers, but by no means all.

Playing Dead, Black-Eyed Susans, and Paper Ghosts, each have a character with dementia. Since there could hardly be a family in America who hasn't felt the heartache of Alzheimer's or some form of dementia, either within their own family or the families of friends and colleagues--it seems appropriate.

Heaberlin's acknowledgements include interesting personal comments about some of the elements that went into the creation of Paper Ghosts, including the grandfather who shot crime scene photographs; her friend, Texas photographer Jill Johnson; and the eery photographs of Keith Carter.

Read in November; blog review scheduled for April 23, 2018.

NetGalley/Random House/Ballantine

Mystery/Suspense. May 15, 2018. Print length: 368 pages.

Julia Heaberlin takes an interesting approach to a murder novel. Instead of trying to solve the crime from a distance, Heaberlin's main character takes charge and directly confronts the serial killer she believes killed her sister. I will avoid any spoilers, however the ending of this novel felt like the story deflated at the end and tried to wrap up too neatly.

Overall, the characters were well fleshed out. Heaberlin's description of dementia was very accurate. Having lived with a relative with dementia, I appreciated her attempt at portraying the struggles that bystanders may experience when working with someone with dementia. Very few novelists that I have read have discussed this topic. As our population ages, more and more people will encounter someone with depression and it was nice to see this reflected in a novel.

Midway through the novel I became bored with the writing. The story started out strong, however as the novel advances the writing is not as captivating. If I wasn't doing this as a review, I would have more than likely not finished the novel. I hoped that the novel would become more exciting and capture my attention again, but it didn't happen. The ending was not predictable as I thought it would be, but it was a disappointing end all the same. It seems like any novel that has a female lead character and deals with crime is compared to Gone Girl. This is not a novel to compare to Gone Girl. There were many areas of opportunity, but overall the novel was a letdown. I am glad it didn't take me too long to read because I was disappointed at the time I put in with the end result. I wouldn't recommend this novel, there are other crime fiction novels that are much better. The premise is strong, but the delivery just was not there for me.

Please be advised that I received this novel through NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

Julia Heaberlin’s Paper Ghosts takes us on one of the craziest road trips ever. The narrator doesn’t give her name to us, or anyone else as she goes on the hunt to find out what happened to her missing sister. Rachel was beautiful, exciting and 19 when she vanished on her way to a babysitting gig. Our narrator just 12 at the time has spent her life researching suspects and cases that could be linked to her sister’s abduction. Now 24 she has pinpointed a single culprit, a famed photographer and possible serial killer Carl Feldman. Carl lives in a sketchy halfway house allegedly suffering from dementia. Our narrator poses as his daughter to take him on a vacation, and so begins a road trip that Kerouac would be envious of.
Carl is an enigma. He has moments of clarity, and of caring, mixed with off hand remarks, conversations with imaginary figures that might be ghosts of his victims or figments of a slipping mind. His ability to focus and notice details is more terrifying and intriguing, than his behavior we assume is related to his dementia (even as we question it’s existence). Heaberlin’s character who is both nameless at first but also has many aliases, guides us through her search for her sister, as she tries to pull memories from a mind that is slowly losing them.
Once I started Paper Ghosts, I only stopped reading to sleep for a few hours. It’s original with moments that are scary and funny.