This was such a treat! This is my first time diving into Julie Clark’s writing and she definitely knows how to craft a gripping and intriguing story. I’ll definitely be giving more of her books a go after how much I enjoyed this!

I have mixed feelings about "The Ghostwriter". The writing is superb. It deserves a 5 star rating. My hesitation is the actual story. If it were true, I think readers would say "much ado about nothing". The plot is okay, but the premise is a bit weak.

I've read other books by Julie Clark and can say her other stories had stronger plot lines, but the writing here was so good that I can still recommend the book.

Julie Clark knows how to keep her readers reading. Not only a mystery from the past but great father-daughter conflict make this book compelling.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s a story about redemption and finding the truth. I couldn’t wait to get to the end to see how it turned out. Highly recommend!!

Wow this book was phenomenal. I was pulled by this family dynamic between a girl and her two brothers. The two story lines between 1975 and present day between the brother and his daughter really was great. The mystery was well thought out and kept me interested until the very end.

From the author of The Last Flight and The Lies I Tell.

Olivia's past is complicated. Her aunt and uncle were killed before she was born and though no one was ever charged, her father was a suspect in their deaths. Small towns have long memories and Olivia's childhood was riddled with speculation about her father's involvement.

Olivia went to college abroad and enjoyed the freedom of anonymity. When she came back to the States, she kept her ex husband's last name, made a home far enough away from where she grew up that she no longer had to acknowledge her childhood or her dysfunctional family.

For awhile that works. She has a successful career as a ghostwriter, a loving boyfriend and a gorgeous house. But after running her mouth against an adversary, she finds herself at the losing end of a civil lawsuit with troublesome financial consequences.

As if that's not enough on her shoulders, her past comes knocking when her father's declining health motivates him to finally shed light on secrets he's been holding onto for years. The catch - he'll only agree to working with Olivia as his ghostwriter. The bigger catch - part of his failing health includes a mental decline.

WHAT I LIKED
*The suspense!
*Dual timelines giving us the opportunity to go back in time through chapters from both Poppy and Vincent's POVs
*Olivia's growth. She had several challenges to work through personally and professionally and I think she handled it brilliantly
*Twists I didn't see coming
*The Ending. And the one secret that stayed buried.

WHAT I COULD HAVE DONE WITHOUT
*Off screen animal death. I can tolerate off screen as opposed to details, but I just don't like it.

Overall a great book. Recommend adding to your TBR. Pub Date: 6/3.

Engrossing story combining ghostwriting with family relationships. Will tug at your heartstrings and keep you reading long after your plan to stop.

Thank you NetGalley for a digital copy of this book. The opinions expressed are my own and freely given.
Olivia hasn't returned home in years. She is a ghostwriter that has had a big hiccup recently, ishas been sued and can't find a job. Her father Vincent is a well knownn author whose brother and sister were murdered when he was a teenager and the world thinks he is guilty of the crime, even though he was never charged. Now he is dying and would like to tell his story. He wrote the draft but needs Olivia to write it so that it is not just ramblings of sick a man. Olivia goes to great lengths to investigate the deaths of her aunt (Poppy) and uncle (Danny), without her father's knowing.
I really liked this book because you can't tell if Vincent really killed Poppy and Danny or not. But of course you find out at the end.
I do recommend this book.

I greatly enjoyed this mystery, with a father and daughter looking into the past to try to solve the mystery of the murders of her aunt and uncle. I was pulled into this and couldn't put it down. I read it in one day.

This Julie Clark book, like a couple others I’ve read by her is a compulsive thriller.
Olivia Dumont (Olivia Taylor) is recruited to Ghostwrite for another infamous writer. It turns out the person requesting her is her father. Olivia has a long history of success, until she wasn’t successful and has debts she must repay.

What I liked about the story it has several points of view, going back to the 1970’s.
It’s not simple back and forth chapters through the points of view, but information to help you figure out the “who dunnit” part of the book, using voices of those no longer present.
I also enjoyed Olivia using her ingrained journalistic skills to help her father, even against his request to not do so.

Poppy, was one of my favorite characters because of her activism and love to the end. Poppy’s voice is the voice of women today. 1975 Poppy would look at today and wonder what happened to this world and push again for freedoms she fought for.

In the end, this was also a story of redemption and love, among families, lovers and, friends. Poppy’s voice portrays this beautifully towards the end of the book.

I would recommend this for a fast paced thriller, in case you need a quick read.

Thank you NetGalley NetGalley Reviewers and Sourcebooks for the ARC, in return for my review

This was a very interesting book that kept me guessing until the end. And even after the mystery was solved I was still questioning myself on whether I read it correctly. I also sympathized with the main character Olivia. Despite her talent as a writer life was not going according to plan which reminds me of the struggle of so many. I also relished the outcome for the true villain of the story. Karma really can be very sweet! All in all I really enjoyed this book and I’m looking forward to reading more by this author.

A woman is hired to ghost-write her father's life story, which will focus on a murder that happened in his home when he was a teen that he was a witness to. Suspenseful.

Thank you to Net Galley and Sourcebook Landmark for the chance to read and review this book. All opinions are my own.
In June 1975 a life changing tragedy occurs at the Taylor house. Siblings Poppy and Danny are murdered. The middle brother Vincent is the number one suspect. Now fifty years later Olivia Dumont, the daughter of Vincent, has been offered a job ghostwriting his memoir. She wants to solve the murders, and she needs the money, so she takes the job. This book kept my attention right from the beginning. I enjoyed the chapters where the family was all together. It was fun to revisit the 70's. I liked the author's style of writing, especially the ending chapters. I recommend this book if you like story about twisty, unsolved murders.

Fantastic!!! I really enjoyed this! It’s really well plotted and had me guessing. I also enjoyed the trip back to the mid 1970’s. Highly recommend!

The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark upcoming
Publication date of June 03, 2025 by Sourcebooks Landmark
Woooo weeee what did I just read??!! This book was a first by this author and while I didn’t get through it as fast as I’d have liked(life got in the way) it was a very good book that most definitely kept me engrossed in the story. There were many twists and turns that kept me guessing all the way through and just when I thought i had it figured out BOOM nope I was wrong!
Loved the book, five stars⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ and I could actually see this one being adapted into a movie. I’d watch it. Suspenseful, family drama, with decades of secrets and lies!
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this early in exchange for a honest review.

It is always wonderful to find a new author that I love. This book was written so wonderfully. I could picture every scene in my mind as she worked her way through the story, and I always love a surprise ending. Well done. I am looking forward to reading more of Julie Clark's work.

THE GHOSTWRITER is a slow-burn twisty mystery/thriller. If you like stories with family secrets, unreliable characters, and plenty of shocking moments, this is the book for you!

Clark is a fantastic writer and an auto-buy author for me. The difference between 4 and 5 stars is because it was a little slow at the start and I was having trouble getting into it. I feel like it could've been tightened up a little.

⭐️: 4.5/5

The Ghostwriter had me hooked right from the first few chapters. Not only did it have a multiple POV, multiple timeline plot, which are my absolute favorite thrillers to read when done well, but it also had a main character who has feminist ideals and is currently struggling through a bit of a cancellation from calling out a misogynist for behaving badly, which immediately endeared me to her and made her easy to root for.

The interweaving of multiple POVs within the present and past timelines was done so well, and made it a great tie in to the memoir writing aspect of it, highlighting the discrepancies that are probably often inherent in the text of the memoirs we read and what actually happened in reality. There were so many twists and turns, and the resolution of what actually happened keeps you guessing right until the end. I absolutely powered through this book because I needed to get to the end and see the whole story unraveled.

I absolutely loved The Lies I Tell, and it was one of my five star reads the year it came out, which cemented Julie Clark as one of my favorite thriller authors, so this was one of my most anticipated books of the year. I can definitely say that this one definitely held up to the standard I was expecting!

Thank you to @netgalley and @bookmarked for providing this eARC for my review!!

Amazing read! Olivia Dumont is a ghostwriter and the latest job she is tasked with is to ghostwrite the story of her father, Vincent Taylor, who is a famous author, and the death of his siblings, Poppy and Danny, and what really happened to them. A lot of people thought that he might have been the one to kill them, but he had an alibi and was never charged and no one was ever found to be guilty of the crime. He is now suffering from Lewy Body dementia and has good days and bad days but the one condition that he has for the book is that Olivia is the person he wants to be the ghostwriter. She isn’t really sure she wants to take the job, but she agrees to try it out and in the end, is really glad that she did. She does her own research and doesn’t only use the notes that her father left for her and she learns some information that he had forgotten about or didn’t know about at the time. They go on to finish the book and it is a huge success and she is really glad that she took the job. I don’t want to give away too much information so I will stop with that but will say that it is a really good read and I recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher and/or author’s representatives that reached out and invited me to read this book for an honest review of the same.

This is the first book I have read by Julie Clark and it makes me want to read more of her books. The Ghostwriter had me hooked from the beginning! As I got halfway through, I could hardly put the book down. I enjoyed the flashbacks to 1975. It was interesting getting perspectives from then. Julie Clark handled jumping between timelines perfectly. It didn't feel jarring. It really felt like I was there piecing the clues together right along side Olivia. There were things that I guessed right, but some things I did not see coming! It's a wonderful book filled with mystery, secrets, lies, and loss. I would definitely recommend this book to people!