Excellent read. Really kept you coming back and really kept you guessing. I enjoyed every single character including the animals. Good read for sure.

Thanks to the publishers for giving me an advance copy to review through Netgalley.
This psychological thriller is different from the usual because it is told by the young girl who has been trying to find answers for her sister's disappearance for more than a decade. Through her research she concludes that Carl Feldman who was a published photographer, seems to be linked to girls who have disappeared.
She decides to take Carl on a road trip to the places he has photographed to try to get some answers. Carl is supposed to suffer from dementia, but as the story progresses, one wonders if that is just a front that Carl is putting on. Will she finally find the answers she is looking for, or will the road trip be a wild goose chase .
I have read other novels by this author and really enjoyed them, but unfortunately I could not get into this story. The characters seemed unbelievable and I got lost midway through the book as the storyline seemed to wander.

I enjoyed reading this fast-paced action packed mystery thriller that will keep you up at night. The characters are well planned out and developed with a setting that is perfect for a thrilling mystery.

Would you go on a road trip with a possible serial killer if it meant you would learn the truth about your sister's disappearance?

Carl Feldman was a photographer before dementia took away his autonomy. A young woman claiming to be his daughter takes him on a road trip to stir up memories, mainly to find our if he is a killer. There are so many things about that premise that make me want to scream at the characters, but it makes an intense book. Carl is quietly creepy, but you feel yourself starting to wonder if he is who he is made out to be. That unsettled feeling of not knowing what is around the corner kept me thinking about this book after it ended.

Incredibly unique take on the serial killer suspense genre. I've read a lot of thrillers, and this is definitely the first time I've seen one where the protagonists kidnaps the alleged killer hoping to get answers via a bizarre yet strategically engineered road trip.

Heroine Grace is very easy to like, especially for those of us who imagine we'd want to take matters into our own hands if we lost a loved one to a murderer, but the truly fascinating character here is Carl. Just creepy enough to remain suspicious, yet just human enough for the reader to doubt his guilt, Heaberlin kept me guessing until the end, and dosed a very dark plot with just enough humor and charm to make it fun.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a very scary thriller that kept me turning the pages, but I thought some of the plot strands did not seem realistic.

Grace is literally chasing ghosts, i.e., trying to find out what happened to missing girls, presumed dead, like her beloved older sister Rachel. She believes Rachel was killed by an alleged serial killer, the famous photographer Carl Feldman. As the story begins, we find that Rachel is visiting Carl in the Texas home where he now resides, which serves as a halfway house for criminals with dementia. Rachel tells everyone, including Carl, that she is Carl’s daughter that he doesn’t remember. She asks to take him on a trip - her goal being to take Carl to the scene of where the girls went missing and to see if she can jar him into confessing.

The story is interesting, and there is certainly a lot of suspense, but I didn’t feel all the plot strands added up. Rachel reportedly “trained” extensively to be alert to any emergency, but she proves remarkably inept. Most jarringly, Carl was amazingly, and unrealistically, it seemed to me, strong, smart, and capable for an older man who supposedly has dementia - really was. Parts of the epilogue did not seem realistic at all. Finally, readers were left in the dark about many aspects of who Carl really was. It left me feeling a bit cheated.

While many of us wonder what we might do to the person who harmed one of our loved ones, this novel finds a young woman who spends her lifetime preparing to essentially kidnap the man she believes got away with murder. Or did he? Is he suffering from dementia? Or is he just extremely crafty? Does he know something about her sister's disappearance? Or is he really just a photographer? In the end, the truth is a little less than satisfying, but the roadtrip is worth every twist and turn.

Paper Ghosts was well written but there was no real plot twist that shocked me. I enjoyed the characters, even though the main character frustrated me at times, and I thought that the pace was good.
It was a story that I enjoyed reading but not one that I will remember from years to come,
Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I have been caught in a thriller mood as of late and Julia Heaberlin delivered everything that I wanted. Paper Ghost reaches out and pulled me in from the minutes I started reading. I had a hard time putting it down to finish things in my busy schedule. My only complaint is that it did get a little slow in the middle, but I had no trouble getting through it. If you want a great psychological thriller then I highly recommend checking out Paper Ghost.

Paper Ghosts is a beautiful, twisted, intense read. Perfect for any reader who enjoys a plot twist! This book did not disappoint.

5 smoking hot stars for a thrill ride that kept me guessing the whole way. Wow. A road trip with your sister's murderer through the Texas landscape? Heck yes. This main character has some wrongs to right and the oomph to get it done. Wow. Just...amazing. I loved it.

Paper Ghosts has a great concept: a young girl tracks down her sister's killer but when she finds him. he is suffering from dementia. So she takes him on a trip to jog his memory of his crimes and find out where her sister is.
The execution is sub par. Also reviews compare it to the books of Gillian Flynn. While it has the same haunted and twisted protagonist, there isn't any really any suspense as I was easily able to figure out how they were going to play the ending (I kept waiting for the amazing twist to no avail). A sub story develops to add some tension but it is not a nail biter at all. But it does at least give some clarification to a plot devoid of real answers.
The best portions of the book are when carl talks about photography. I really enjoyed the descriptions and how he was moved by photography. The writer was able o put into words why photography can be such a great form of art.
Paper Ghosts is o.k. but it never really gives you the tension and puzzle you want. The whole novel skirts across the top of idea that could have been so much more deep

Paper Ghosts was amazingly written. It was haunting and beautiul and I couldn't put this down for a second.

Finally. A thriller that COMPLETELY surprised me at the end! I had so many guesses, but I wasn't even close. I read this book in just two sittings. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time and it was such a rollercoaster of emotions. I loved how the main character was basically a badass who was ready for absolutely anything this serial killer could think up to throw her off her game. This was definitely one of the best thrillers I've read in a long time.

I had a hard time getting into this book. I couldn't get into the main character, I just found her obsession so unrelatable. Since I did not finish the book, I do not intend to publish a review.

I would like to thank Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

I have not been reading thrillers lately because I was having an extremely difficult time finding ones that could give me that edge-of-your-seat feeling that I used to love to get from a good thriller. When I read this part of the description for Paper Ghosts though, I knew I had to take a chance:

"A gripping thriller about a man who may or may not have dementia—and who may or may not be a serial killer—from a master of twists and turns..." (Description from NetGalley)

There is nothing I like better from a thriller than a good guessing game. I love to be misled until the very end of the book, and that is exactly the experience I had with this book. Never at any point was I sure that I could trust my instincts regarding either Carl or the young woman who takes him on a road trip in search of answers.

Paper Ghosts was a pleasant surprise, and just what I needed to get me interested during a reading slump. This book is exciting and engaging, and I definitely recommend it to anyone who wants a shot of excitement in their reading life.

I was given a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own and I am never compensated for my reviews.

Received an advanced copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review...

During my late teenage years and early twenties, I took on a job as a care giver at a facility which specifically handled Dementia and Alzheimer. After taking care of many people and guiding them on their end of life journey, I found the concept of this book rather interesting and intriguing. In all my time working with those beautiful old souls, I never knew who they were or used to be. And unfortunately, half the time, they never really knew either. When I read the synopsis this got my mind twirling with the possibilities.

This story follows Carl and our female protagonist, (who has no official name - until much later), on a road trip visiting sites where Carl may or may not have murdered some girls. Our protagonist is almost positive that Carl is the reason her sister disappeared. And this trip is supposed to jog his depleting memory into some sort of confession. However, it is a story and plans never goes as they should.

So we have two primary characters, where neither are very reliable or trustworthy. Our protagonist is obsessed with her sister's disappearance in a really unhealthy and borderline OCD manner. Which at times made me really question her actions and thinking process. She wants it to be Carl so entirely bad that it is hard to for a reader to truly trust her judgement or thought process. And then we have Carl, Carl is a little pistol. I truly enjoyed his character. He was an old, wise cracker with such a saucy side that had me cracking up at times. I almost forgot that he may or may not be a serial killer.

Mostly, I do not enjoy stories about road trips. In my opinion, they are predictable and over done. However, I didn't really get that feel with this story. The road trip had such a creepy and criminal intent to it that I really enjoyed. Overall, this story shed new light onto road trip stories for me. However, I feel like Heaberlin didn't quite nail Carl's disease. She presented many believable elements with Carl, but overall, I did not believe that she wrote the disease in a manner which was believable for how advanced his situation was supposed to be.

Overall, I found the story to be rather enjoyable. The banter between our characters, the murder theme, and the big mystery of did Carl kill Rachel or did he not?

I would suggest checking this story out.

Reading Paper Ghosts was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Each chapter is a piece of the picture, which doesn't become clear until the final chapters. The main character, whose real name isn't mentioned until late in the book, is trying to figure out what happened to her sister, who disappeared years earlier. She has been investigating various leads over the years but fixates on a man suspected in an abduction case who is now suffering from dementia. She visits him and pretends to be his daughter, eventually convincing him to take a trip with her to help him remember his past. The strength of this book is that the reader doesn't know who to trust- the main character or the man she suspects took her sister. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a book that keeps the reader guessing until the end.

This is a very well-written book. Though at times I felt bogged down by the detail, I would recommend it, and I would like to read more by Ms. Heaberlin.

On the surface, Paper Ghosts is set up for a mind bending thriller. I was instantly drawn to the premise. I went into it expecting to be taken on a wild ride, filled with psychological twists. Instead, it was a grand tour of Texas as a nice clip. The pacing of the novel fell short for me, and I felt that the first half of the novel didn’t provide much depth to the multiple murders that were in question. I kept waiting, I kept reading, but the anticipated action never really came.

I appreciated how the novel ended, and I did enjoy the story. I think I went into it with one expectation and was given something different, which may be my own fault. This is one of those novels that it might serve you better to go into blindly and take it for what it is.