When you approach a new Julie Clark mystery, you must accept that you will do little else until you finish it. You will ignore your work, put down your phone, and forget to make dinner, all in service of ripping through another well told, smart story. Clark specializes in strong women facing difficult choices and The Ghostwriter offers several such examples. Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark and Netgalley for the DRC.

Once again, Julie Clark has written a great thriller. I enjoyed her previous books and was delighted to be able to read a advance copy of this one thanks to the publisher and NetGalley. I liked the premise of the book which includes a writer with dementia (who may have been the murderer of his siblings), an estranged daughter who is a ghostwriter, and the publishing industry. The story alternated between current time and when the murders took place. There were lots of twists and turns, and the ending was unexpected. Clark did a great job bringing the characters to life, and she even let the dead sister's story be told from her own point of view. I think this book would be a great choice for book discussion groups. I highly recommend it.

Thank you NetGalley for a copy of this ebook in return for an honest review!
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A daughter returns home to ghostwrite her father’s memoir. The memoir of his two siblings that died in a tragic murder 50 years ago. A murder that the town believed he committed.

This book had me on the edge of my seat from the very beginning! It’s so haunting to me. Tragic murder of family and nobody arrested. Not knowing if it was your own dad or not.

Olivia was an amazingly, strong female character. She had a rough life but she kept pushing. I loved that she was the one to ghostwrite and find out the answers to questions that have been asked for nearly 50 years.

This book also takes you past and present. It’s so beautifully done and really connects you to the characters in 1975 leading up to the murders. It’s heartbreaking to read at times knowing what will happen.

I also didn’t know a lot about ghostwriting and I loved the author explained it so well. Also loved that it was mentioned the difference between men and women. It was mentioned in 1975 and current day. Still the same struggles of females being less than males. Wonderfully done.

The ending and twists were so well done and thought out. I didn’t even catch on until the very end. This book will be with me for a while! Just thinking on it. Wondering what could have happened if things were different. When a fiction book does that to you, you know it was great!

I would recommend this book to anyone needing a fast-paced thriller book full of family dynamics and lies.

The Ghostwriter written by Julie Clark is a story about Olivia, who is originally from small town Ojai, California and raised by a world renowned horror author Vincent Taylor. At the beginning of the book, we learn that Olivia and Vincent have a strained relationship and haven't spoken to each other in decades. Olivia's family has a glooming and devastating history that she spent years lying about and trying to get away from. See, back in 1975, Vincent was accused of killing his teen siblings Danny and Poppy, but was never tried for the case, as his alibi was air tight.

Fast forward to present day, Olivia is a respected and successful Ghostwriter of non fiction books, who find herself in a tight situation. She is being sued and outcasted by the publishing companies after publicly shaming a renowned male Ghostwriter on social media for his rude remarks. Olivia, broke and on the verge of losing everything, was offered an opportunity by her father's publishers to Ghostwrite a novel for him, where he finally speaks about the truth of the night his siblings Danny and Poppy were killed.

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The plot is compelling and I was excited to dive into essentially a "whodunit" cold case. However, this is one of the few books that the author did not include anything suspenseful or thrilling for me as a reader, throughout the book to keep me interested in finding out what actually happened to Danny and Poppy. I enjoyed the way the book was written in past (1975) and present day chapters from the view points of Olivia, Vincent and Poppy. My favorite chapters were from Poppy's point of view. Her character was spunky, brave and really came to life on the pages. However, Vincent's chapters were repetitive, uninteresting and cliché. In all honesty, many points of the book were cliché. But, Olivia's chapters were by far the worse. She was painstakingly boring, dry and uninspiring. I found myself skimming through Olivia and Vincent's chapters because they were so monotonous.
I've read many books, and I can usually get through many of them and rarely have to DNF a book. But, during the first 35% of the Ghostwriter, I put the it down 4 separate times before I finally talked myself into finishing it to give it a fair review.
However, while sludging through this story, I found myself dredding it, constantly checking to see how far I read into it because I just wanted it to be done.
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The twists are fed to the reader on a silver platter throughout the story with every cliché you can possibly think of. By the time I reached the end of the book, nothing was a surprise. Having to read 85% of a book, to get to an ending that was a huge let down was quite annoying. The last few chapters that were in 1975 were fast paced and suspenseful, but in between those chapters, we are propelled to present day with Olivia which interrupted the pacing.
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This is one of those few books I won't recommend to people. My full rating for this novel is 2 1/2 stars. 1 star for Poppy's chapters, 1 star for the open-ended ending of the novel and 1/2 star for the Lewy Body representation.
Thank you Sourcebooks Landmark for the gifted ARC provided through Netgalley for my honest and unbiased review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for this ARC! The beginning of this read was kind of hard to engage with, but as I’m sticking with it I hope it will pick up. I have a read a couple of chapters so far and it has been difficult to get through overall. The plot seems like an interesting twisty sort of novel, so I’m hoping it will transition into a more engaging segment.

This is a historical horror that follows a writer who has been tapped to write the story of a famous horror writer, who was the sole surviving sibling who has had to move forward while being blamed for killing his siblings. He has never revealed what truly happened that night. This book has so many twists and turns as Olivia has to figure out what is theatrics, what is fact and what is fiction. This book has a lot of tension and suspense.

The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark is a gripping read full of twists and turns. Olivia has no other choice but to ghostwrite her estranged father’s new novel, despite their nonexistent relationship and a dysfunctional family dynamic. As she tries to unravel the mystery of her father’s brother and sister’s murder, the story unfolds with multiple layers—her own struggles, her father’s declining health, and long-buried family secrets. With an engaging mix of suspense and emotion, this book kept me hooked until the end. I will recommend this to readers who enjoy thrillers and women's fiction with family dysfunction. It will also be one to recommend to book clubs. I look forward to what is next from Julie Clark.

Another great thriller from Julie Clark! I love when we get new authors that continue to put out great book after great book!

The Ghostwriter has one of the more unique plots I have read in a while: a woman ghostwriting her estranged father's memoir, despite him being accused of killing his siblings 30 years ago. What!!?? That plot alone made this one hard to put down!

The book sprinkles in snippets of content from the past in the form of journal entries, a diary written in code, and long thought lost home movies. Clark does a good job of allowing these anecdotes to add to the story without straying too far from the present day, which I really appreciate. It added depth to the plot rather than it feeling like a dual timeline novel, which it was not. However, there are great glimpses of the 1970's culture with all those movies and journal entries, which made the novel feel immersive and like an expertly woven narrative fabric.

While Clark does bring her signature feminist grit to The Ghostwriter, it wasn't as strong as in her previous novels. However, I though it was a perfect amount, I like that it was still present because that is actually something I have come to love about this author's novels, but the plot didn't make a lot of room for it, so I think it was well balanced.

Overall, a really well done thriller! This will make a great summer read!

I received a free digital copy of The Ghostwrite from the publisher and NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Ghostwriter Olivia Dumont returns to her father’s house to ghostwrite his last book. He is a well known horror author who is ready to tell the truth about his brother and sisters murders when they were just teenagers. I love Julie Clark, this book was twisty and dark, slow burn at the start which then turned into me staying up all night to know what happened next.

Told in tldual timeliness, present day and 1975, i fpund this boom to be a good mystery with some family dysfunction mixed in. A multi layered story that kept me guessing until the very end. Well done

Thabk you netgalley for the ARC!!!!!

Thank you Netgalley for the free ARC! I thought this was a great book. I enjoyed the plot and the suspenseful twists and turns. I also was very engaged with the before and after storyline. I would definitely recommend this bok and all of Julie Clark’s novels.

I had never read this author before but I must say I enjoyed this book. A lot of imagination went into this story. I liked all of the twists.

The Ghostwrite was an unusual story, but it drew me in quickly. It is assumed that Olivia's author father killed his siblings when they were only in their teens. They're estranged, but as she is also a writer she is asked to ghostwrite his memoir. Against her better judgment, she accepts, and begins digging for the truth. This was a fast and interesting book. I enjoyed the seventies references quite a bit. Thank you NetGalley for this ARC.

The Ghostwriter is everything I want in a thriller and I was blown away by how fantastic this one is! Twisty, past/present timelines, a book within a book, a smart and savvy protagonist who you can’t help but root for. There are so many interesting threads and it comes together in such a seamless, satisfying way. I actually grew up around where this story takes place and it was very well done. You’ll spend the majority of this book kind of feeling like you know what’s going on but you probably won’t. It was a big ah-ha moment once we finally realize what happened that fateful night her father was accused of murder.

Overall, this is going to be a huge, buzzy release this year and it deserves every ounce of recognition! Mystery thriller fans are going to eat this up.

Ghostwriter Olivia is hired to write for her estranged father (a successful horror writer). He wants to write about the unsolved murder of his two siblings before he can no longer remember due to Lewy body dementia. Olivia delves into what her father has hand written for her and tries to piece together what really happened.
This novel is a slow burn. It really took me a minute to be hooked but once we started getting more POVs and more details through her aunts home videos it pulled me in. I did like the multi POVs and different timelines I feel like everything really flowed well story wise. I did figure out the "killer" pretty early on in this book. I don't feel like there were "twists" but there were many turns. This was my first Julie Clark novel, I enjoyed it enough to read another.
Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review!

4.5 stars
This book pulled me in and I’m still thinking about it after I’ve finished. I loved the multiple points of view between characters and time. The plot line with pulling his daughter back to ghost write their story, with the hidden clues, and unreliable narration made this so I couldn’t put it down. Each chapter I’d tell myself I would read one more, until I’d devoured the whole book.

I enjoyed this, the premise was interesting and it was a good mystery about a family with many tragedies. Good comments on the pain we carry from our families

This is family psychological thriller done so well. Past and present converge when our protagonist agrees to ghostwrite her father’s story… the truth about the deaths of his brother and sister when he was a teenager. There are many reasons she wants to refuse, but more reasons for her to say yes. She is eager to know the truth, too.

I enjoyed the dual timeline and the various perspectives. This was full of twists and intrigue. I had a great time reading The Ghostwriter.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced e-book.

This book was full of drama and suspense. This is my second book. I have read from Julie Clark and this was my favorite. She is definitely an author. I will read from in the future.

Olivia is hired to be the ghostwriter for her ailing father’s memoir.- her father that she has not seen in more spoken to in years. She unveils clues to a the mysterious death of his siblings. But first she has to decide- did her father kill them like the rumors suggest?
This book is suspenseful and kept me guessing until the end. The relationship between Olivia and her father starts very tense but develops into a deeper understanding. Five Stars!!