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!

4.5 ⭐️
Olivia Dumont has spent years trying to stay far away from her family name. Even after her divorce, she kept her married name just to avoid being linked to her father, Vincent Taylor—a famous horror writer with a dark past.
Now low on cash, Olivia agrees to ghostwrite for her estranged, dying father. But it’s not another scary story—he wants to tell the real story behind the murders of his teenage siblings from 50 years ago, a case that’s always had a cloud of suspicion over him.
Olivia goes back to Ojai, reluctantly, and starts digging through her dad’s version of events—but is he being truthful?
Determined to find out what really happened to Poppy and Danny, she begins her own investigation into the past.
What follows is a gripping, twisty search for answers in a family mystery that refuses to stay buried.

I felt like the beginning of the book was kind of slow for me, but it really picked up around 40% and then I couldn’t put it down. I ended up really enjoying the story.
I would recommend this to friends.
Add it to your TBR list!
Release date 6/2/25

Thank you NetGalley and publisher SOURCEBOOKS Landmark for this free arc ebook in exchange for my honest review.

Julie Clark delivers again with The Ghostwriter. This is a multi pov that alternates between the 70's and present day.
Olivia is caught up in a legal battle that is preventing her from doing her job. Her father wants her to continue his book which details the truth of what happened so many years ago.Since, Olivia's father is ill, and since everyone believes he is guilty of murdering his siblings when he was young, he wants the truth to finally be revealed of what happened that fateful day.
Olivia can't really turn the offer down considering her current circumstances, so she accepts.

The Ghostwriter had me audibly gasped couple of times. I was engrossed in this book from start to finish. I don't have anything negative to say about it. What a pageturner!!

A big thanks to Sourcebooks and Netgalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

Expected publication June 3, 2025

I liked the twisty that kept coming until the very end. However, the first part dragged a bit, I am glad I kept reading. I have a clear picture of the characters as reading.

The Ghostwriter is a gripping, haunting, heartbreaking suspense novel. It is also a novel about a family and its deepest, darkest secrets—the accusations, the guilt, the truth behind the murder of two teenagers. Olivia Dumont is a successful ghostwriter whose career is at an impasse, when she is asked to ghostwrite the memoir of a highly successful author—a man that is Olivia’s estranged father. As Olivia delves into her father’s story, will she finally understand why her mother left her, why her father sent her away, and will she discover who killed her father’s siblings? I was on the edge of my seat as mysteries are unraveled, sometimes leading to even more mysteries, as Olivia follows the trail of her father’s diminishing memory. Behind the murder mystery there are complicated and twisted emotions, so many lies, so many pieces to a very intricate puzzle. This is the perfect book for readers who love a mystery and who also love stories about families and relationships that are complicated and difficult. I received an advance reader copy of this book.

A perfect whodunit story wrapped up in a daughter's struggle to understand her family & reconnect with her absentee father. This was a well-paced, well-constructed story with multiple POVs from the past events. I especially enjoyed the journey of Olivia trying to understand her family while writing a compelling book on behalf of her father.

Another great thriller from Julie Clark! The chapters alternate between three narrators: Olivia, Vincent and Poppy from 1975 to the present. Olivia was ghostwriting a tell all with her estranged father. Olivia had quite the challenge writing this because her father's memory was spotty as he had a disease called Lewy Body Dementia. Olivia's father Vincent had a huge secret that he wanted to get out before he died. It was a secret in their family for many decades yet changed the trajectory of the whole family's future. Olivia was racing against time and her fathers deteriorating memory to find out what the secret was. As more details emerge from Vincent's memory his unpredictable behavior becomes even more disturbing. Will Olivia uncover the secret before her father's memory is gone or will the family's secret stay a secret for eternity? I enjoyed the suspense and how the details of the secret are slowly divulged.

Julie Clark has become one of my favorite authors over the past few years. Therefore, I was thrilled to get approved for an early copy of her latest, “The Ghostwriter.”

Set primarily in Ojai, California this book follows Olivia Dumont. She’s a ghostwriter and the only child of Vincent Taylor, a famous author of horror novels. He also happens to be the only surviving sibling of a tragedy that occurred back in June 1975. His older brother, Danny, and younger sister, Poppy, were found dead in the family home. Since then, he’s been considered the prime suspect by many in his hometown.

Olivia is asked to be the ghostwriter of her father’s latest novel. She accepts the work because she’s on the brink of financial ruin due to her public criticism the prior year of a fellow, male author. One other issue she has to overcome is that she’s been estranged from Vincent for several years. Upon arriving back in Ojai, she quickly finds out the book he wants to write is a memoir. He also wants to cover what happened to his brother and sister fifty years before, back in June 1975.

This book has three narrators – Olivia, Vincent, and Poppy. It flips back-and-forth between present day and 1975. It involves the process of Olivia writing the book, but also provides context to the events leading up to Danny and Poppy’s deaths.

Overall, I recommend this book. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my ARC.

The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark
Holy buckets. This was done so well! I loved how it was written—so clever. The mix of past and present and the twist of facts and fiction was brilliant.

I was sucked into this book and could not find a place to stop reading. I loved the storyline, the character development, and the pacing. Everything about this was done so well.

It was easy to put myself in Olivia’s shoes, with how she chose to handle her upbringing and past- she did what she felt was necessary for her survival. However, the truth rarely stays secret, and the spotlight shines on her history.

My heart aches for Tom as he discovers that the woman he loved had been lying. He is not immediately interested in the why, and that is understandable but devastating.

My heart also hurt for Vince. He loved his life as an outcast in a sense. Succumbing to addiction and avoidance. Losing himself in a fictional realm that paved his way to building the walls he thought would keep his secrets.

Secrets are heavy. And they only get heavier over time. This was a tale so beautifully written that everything matters. There were no superfluous details, no fluff, and no filler. Everything mattered. The shadows. The secrets. The things in the background. And the truth was not the most obvious.

Brilliantly written, beautifully delivered, and emotionally powerful, this story is about truth, family, and redemption. Katy approved.

Publication date: June 3, 2025
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark

3+

This is a book with ups and downs, but it was in general a refreshing read.

Olivia fell in disgrace in her career as a ghostwriter so when the offer from famous mystery writer Vincent Taylor comes to write his next book for him, she must accept. Even though he's actually the substance-abuser, neglectful parent who shipped her to a boarding school in Europe and never looked back. However, when she gets there, she finds out the book is a memoir to tell the public what he never told the police about how his two siblings died decades before. Only, his memory isn't the same, so it is Olivia's just to piece it all together.

The book is basically from Olivia's perspective, with a couple of chapters written from other character's, which are actually chapters from the book she is writing. So we have a narrator that is far from being trusted because she's also trying to find out the truth. I think this setup was the gem in this book. I love how we can't trust her father one bit but we're still willing to. The whole time I had no reason to trust him but I wanted to believe in him.

However, I think this book was very wordy. There were parts my mind flew away because of the superfluous narration. I may be a bad judge though. Still, I think there was a lot of cleaning that could be done to make the read more dynamic.

The other thing that got to me was the ending. The story in the ending itself was fine; it was even a good closing to all the questions raised. My problem was with the way it's shown. I'm sure the writer was going for that: show don't tell. But this made me confused about what was on the book the main character is writing and what was something for us real readers. and the answer, I could just conclude after reading what made more sense. It wasn't my favorite experience.

The backstory, however, is enticing. This is a tasty read for the summer, for sure.

Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.