A true suspense thriller with an emotional twist. A horror writer who has lived with his own horror for 50 years and a daughter that has tried to distance herself from her family. The ghostwriter is hired to write the family story, but is it the truth or one more lie? Very engaging.

The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark is a fast-paced and twisty read with an intriguing premise, but it didn’t quite live up to its full potential. While the story kept me turning pages, some plot points felt a bit far-fetched and the characters lacked emotional depth. I appreciated the themes of identity and reinvention, but the execution sometimes felt rushed. Overall, it was an entertaining read, just not especially memorable.

Thank you @bookmarked @julieclarkauthor and @netgalley for the ARC of The Ghostwriter! I had read and LOVED The Last Flight years ago and was excited to check out another title by the author.

Olivia Dumont is a ghostwriter as well as the daughter to the infamous author, Vincent Taylor. Vincent is an successful horror author, but his fame began as a teen when he became the only surviving sibling in his family when his older brother and younger sister are brutally murdered in their home when they were all teenagers back in 1975. There has always been a layer of suspicion as to if Vincent himself was involved in the murders as there were growing tensions in the Taylor house prior to the murders.

As a child, Olivia grew up not knowing what really happened to her aunt and uncle and was constantly hearing whispers about her family around town. Her mother left when she was five, her father turned to drinking and was quite absent, and later sent her away to boarding school at 16- the last time she saw him. In present day, Olivia is in a tough financial situation and is offered a lucrative job to be a ghostwriter- for her father who is sick. He is finally ready to tell his story about the night his siblings are murdered which brings many twists and turns for Olivia who doesn’t know what is fact, what is fiction, or who to believe.

I loved this one! It was definitely more of a slow burn, but I couldn’t wait to pick this book up any opportunity I had. I enjoyed Olivia navigating her difficult relationship with her father and her quest for uncovering the truth. I always love a multiple POV thriller and the perspectives from Vincent and his younger sister Poppy added so much to unraveling this mystery. Highly recommend this quality thriller!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

I loved this one!! If you're a fan of multiple POVS, domestic suspense, true crime and cold cases, you definitely want to add it to your TBR. The Ghostwriter had me hooked from start to finish.

Thank you Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for the digital ARC.

This was the first book I’ve read from Julie Clark and I loved it! I enjoyed the multiple POVs and the split timeline. A bit of a slow burn, but it had me guessing until the end.

Founded to 4.5! This was so good. Such a unique storyline and I Kinsley had no idea who the murderer was by the end. I lived the build up in the events that were unfolding.

June, 1975.

The Taylor family shatters in a single night when two teenage siblings are found dead in their own home. The only surviving sibling, Vincent, never shakes the whispers and accusations that he was the one who killed them. Decades later, the legend only grows as his career as a horror writer skyrockets.

Ghostwriter Olivia Dumont has spent her entire professional life hiding the fact that she is the only child of Vincent Taylor. Now on the brink of financial ruin, she's offered a job to ghostwrite her father's last book. What she doesn't know, though, is that this project is another one of his lies. Because it's not another horror novel he wants her to write.

After fifty years of silence, Vincent Taylor is finally ready to talk about what really happened that night in 1975.

**4.5-stars rounded up**

The Ghostwriter is such a beautifully-tragic Thriller. I loved the way Clark constructed this story. The way the truth was revealed, the stellar character work, and the emotions she was able to elicit in me upon completion; wow. I quickly became invested in this one and loved how it kept me guessing the entire way through. Even when I thought I had the answer, I was never 100%, and I got so much wrong.

The Ghostwriter is told in two timelines. Presently, our MC, Olivia Dumont, is returning to her hometown to help her estranged father write his memoir. Olivia makes her living as a ghostwriter, and it seems she is perfect for the project. Her father is an iconic Horror writer, infamous for the family tragedy that took the lives of his two siblings when he was just a teen. Olivia has always hidden the fact that THE Vincent Taylor is her Dad. It's complicated.

The past timeline is set in 1975, the year Vincent's siblings, Poppy and Danny, were brutally murdered in their home. As the case went cold, many suspected that Vincent had something to do with the crime. Decades later, Vincent has been diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia, a progressive brain disorder that disrupts his behavior and memories. It's at this point, he decides he needs to tell his side of the story, before he no longer can.

We're told this story through this beautiful blend of these different points in time; through Vincent telling his version of events, and Olivia putting her Journalism education to the test, digging into the events of the past via outside sources. This book has a lot of my favorite things in it, so that was working in its favor right off the bat. I love characters returning to their hometown after a long period away, looking into some sort of mystery of their past. Additionally, I love journalism as an occupation for main characters. They frequently make the most fun investigators to follow.

I was so invested in both timelines and loved trying to figure out the truth of what happened to the Taylor siblings. It was completely gripping and entertaining. I would absolutely recommend this to any Thriller Reader, particularly if you enjoy those of the darker, or more violent variety. Also, check it out if you enjoy dark family secrets and past-present timelines.

Thank you to the publisher, Sourcebooks Landmark, for providing me with a copy to read and review.
This was my first time reading from Julie Clark, and I cannot wait for more!

This was such a dark and twisted read that I could not put it down! I loved reading between multiple view points to get to the bottom of who truly murdered Danny and Poppy.
There was jealousy, skewed stories, lies and deception. The ending.. I did not see coming! I highly recommend reading this one!

This was my third Julie Clark read (I found her ages ago via The Last Flight), and once again—she nailed it. Each book is so different, but she always delivers that breath-holding, page-flipping intensity that I crave.

In this one, we’ve got:
👻 A ghostwriter
🧠 A famous author dad with Lewy Body Dementia
🕵️‍♀️ A decades-old murder mystery
🙃 An unreliable narrator
🌀 Twists I did not see coming

If you love smart thrillers with layered family drama and a dash of moral ambiguity—this is your next read. I was hooked from page one and never looked back!

An unsolved murder, a complicated father/daughter relationship shrouded in mystery and a request from said father for your services as his ghostwriter; what could go wrong? Th dual timeline flows as the story plunges you into dark family secrets. This was great and also somewhat emotional.

This is the first book that I have read from this author and boy was this a ride. I thought they writing was wonderful and look forward to reading more.

There are some stories that drag on and on to get to the "who dun it" part, but not this one. It kept me in its grips the entire time. Just when I thought I had it figured out Julie Clark through another twist at me.

Thank you to Sourcebooks Lankmark and Netgalley for the eARC.

Julie Clark has been an auto-buy author for me ever since I read The Last Flight. I think she's very talented and there were so many elements I liked about this story. I liked that it was set in the 70s and I loved that Poppy had home videos from her camcorder. It added a unique element beyond the usual diary (though she did have that too!) The sibling dynamic was so interesting and I loved guessing along as Olivia (through Poppy's clues) tries to unravel everything since Vincent's memory is unreliable. Since Olivia is ghostwriting, there's also an element of a book within a book, but honestly the mystery was so intriguing that it overshadowed that. There was one big event that seemed predictable to me, but there were enough other twists that it didn't ruin the book for me.
I read a lot of thrillers, so I really appreciate unique ones like this that keep me hooked the entire time.
Thanks so much to NetGalley and Sourbooks for the ARC in exchange for my review.

Eh...it was ok. There wasn't any likeable characters. The jumping around timelines & narrators had me a little confused sometimes. Wasn't overly thrilled with conclusion. But it was interesting.

The Ghostwriter follows Olivia, a writer behind the scenes who has tried to escape her past, tied to a weird author father.

Dealing with substantial career and financial challenges, she is given a role that takes her home.

This is a slow burn, with family drama, creepy characters, and multiple perspectives/timelines to keep you guessing the whole time!

Thank you to Netgalley and SourceBooks Landmark for an ARC.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this ARC publication for an honest review.

What a dark and twisty book that absolutely keeps you guessing until the very end! I appreciated getting the past and current timeline to try to fit all the pieces together of who in fact killed the siblings...and was it Vincent?

The plotline was brilliantly done! We have Olivia who is hired to be a ghostwriter...and the author of the unfinished manuscript turns out to be her estranged father. The one who rumors say killed his brother and sister. Add to the dysfunctional situation, Olivia's father is now suffering from a form of dementia that makes him hallucinate, become violent at times, and distort fact and fiction. He however is determined to get his story out about what happened on the night of the murder.

This is part emotional family dynamics, part dark, suspense filled with a "who done it" mystery.

5 stars

Olivia Dumont has spent her adult life as a ghostwriter trying to hide her true identity as the daughter of the infamous Vincent Taylor. Vincent’s siblings were brutally murdered when he was a teen and everyone has always suspected that he was the killer, although it was never proven. Using his notoriety, he carves out a successful career as a horror novelist and in the process leads to the estrangement of his daughter.

Out of the blue, Olivia is asked to be the ghostwriter for her father’s final book, as he is suffering from a terminal illness and is exhibiting signs of dementia. Due to a scandal that has financially ruined her, Olivia has no choice but to accept this assignment. What she doesn’t realize, is that Vincent is finally ready to talk (and write a book) about what happened on the fateful night his siblings were killed. And Olivia is about to unearth a lot of buried family secrets.

I really enjoyed this author’s previous novel, The Lies I Tell, and I still have The Last Flight on my bookshelf, waiting to be read. This novel has an unreliable character in Vincent Taylor so often Olivia isn’t sure what is true and what isn’t. I always find that fun in a novel as I’m not sure what to believe. The novel goes back in forth in time so the reader can actual “see” the timeline as Olivia tries to piece it together in the present. I liked this book but enjoyed her previous one more. It’s a bit more character-driven than the typical suspense novel, but that’s kind of the point of this one.

Thank you to @netgalley @bookmarked for a #gifted digital copy of this novel.

I was going to be highly interested in the new Julie Clark novel regardless of the premise, and this felt like a good one: Ghostwriter Olivia Dumont has spent her entire professional life hiding the fact that she is the only child of Vincent Taylor. Now on the brink of financial ruin, she's offered a job to ghostwrite her father's last book. What she doesn't know, though, is that this project is another one of his lies. Because it's not another horror novel he wants her to write. After fifty years of silence, Vincent Taylor is finally ready to talk about what really happened that night in 1975.

And by "that night," he means, the night both of his other siblings were found dead in their home.

THE GHOSTWRITER was engaging and easy to follow. The thing is, the reveals just... did not work for me. I don't understand the motivation behind either murder - as a reader, I'm being asked to assume characters did A when it'd be much more likely for anyone in a similar situation to do B. So. I inhaled this book in two days, and I was let down by the ending.

The perfect summer mystery! I’m such a fan of Julie Clark—she nails tension and character development with equal talent. I loved the Ojai setting and the addition of the aging father and daughter dynamic, as well as the inside baseball pieces of the publishing industry. This is the perfect vacation or pool/lakeside read!!

Vincent Taylor was the only survivor when his two siblings were both found dead in their home and now as a adult, he has become a famous horror book author who has spent his life eluding the whispers and suspicions about what really happened on that night.
Olivia, who has spent her life hiding the fact that he is her father, is hired to ghost write his last book, which she believes to be another horror story. Needing the money, ahe agrees only to find she was misled and he is writing his version of what happened on that night.
Only what is real and what is not?
Olivia needs to find the answer.
Both the title and story premise drew me in immediately but I did not
find it as intriguing or suspenseful as I had thought it might be.