Really liked this thriller, it is the second book I have read recently that has a ghost writer as the protagonist, and I think it is a very fun set up. There were a few things at the beginning that I found pretty far fetched, which sometimes can make it hard for me to get into a story, but I was able to get past them with this one. The mystery was fun and really kept me guessing, and I appreciated the strong sense of place and time used in the story. Definitely an above average thriller, would definitely recommend.

This book had everything from suspense to family drama. The two timelines complimented each other and were very cohesive. The author did a great job of making the reader question and keeping the story flowing to grasp attention as well as revealing the truth in a way that wasn’t completely far fetched.

Thank you to Julie Clark, NetGalley, and Sourcebooks for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

First of all let me thank NetGalley for the e-arc of this book. I was so excited to read another of Julie Clark’s novels.

This is my 3rd Julie Clark book and it’s another 5 star rating! The story is done in the present, but ventured to the past all throughout. It kept me wanting to know more and not wanting to put it down.

ARC review • pub date 06.03.25

Wow, this book had me HOOKED. It was so well written and had me turning the pages. Absolutely loved this one! Now I’m going to go grab her backlist that I have on my shelf and push them to the top of my TBR! 👏🏻

Olivia is a ghostwriter and struggling after a public remark she made that basically tanked her career. She receives an offer to ghostwrite for a famous horror writer, who happens to be her father she hasn’t spoken to in decades. When her father was a teenager, his older brother and younger sister were brutally murdered in their home, and while the case was never solved, everyone believes that he was the murderer.

Being reunited with her father causes memories to come out and Olivia is deepdiving trying to figure out who killed the aunt and uncle she never got to meet.

I lovedddd this book and will recommend to all my friends and be thinking about it for a while!

Read if you love:
-cold cases
-flashbacks
-treasure hunts
-70’s nostalgia
-whodunnits

Thanks so much to netgalley and sourcebooks landmark for my ARC!

Thank you to NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS for this ARC! Wow. I loved this book from the very first page. I've read 7 ARC's from NetGalley so far this month, and this one was my favorite, by far. It's atmospheric and twisty with strong, complex, imperfect characters. It's the best thriller I've read in a long time, and it was smart, thought-provoking, and unexpectedly tender in many places. Julie Clark captures the vibe of the 1970's so well in the flashback chapters, and there are so many important threads throughout about what we think we know or understand about our loved ones, and how responsible we are for telling our own stories, what is mythical in regards to our memories, and the ripple effects of abuse and sexual assault and not fitting in. I was riveted to every single page, and found myself taking breaks so I wouldn't rush the reading experience. I'll be talking this book up to everyone as THE thriller to look for this coming summer!

While I’ve enjoyed all of Julie Clark’s books to date, The Ghostwriter is probably my least favorite. It was quite the slow burn and it took me awhile to get through it. I felt that the story dragged on and kind of went in circles. That said, I do recommend this book for anyone who enjoys suspense and thrillers.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my review.

Overall, I enjoyed this book! I like thrillers and this did fulfill that role for me.

Pros:
- The plot builds up tension slowly as the narrative moves along, but it doesn't feel too slow... Kind of a subtle "slow burn" vibe.
- The story itself creates some nice twists at the end; you do kind of expect something like this because, again, the narrative gradually builds up to them.
- This book includes a realistic portrayal of dementia and how it can affect the patient themselves, in addition to their environment.

Cons:
- There's a character who is seen from the beginning to make choices that I imagine would be very suspicious even in the 1970s. Despite this, contemporaneously, it didn't seem like anyone in the community was concerned.
- Another mention of current politics...I wish my fiction reads would stop letting me know who they want to be president.
- Most of the characters don't seem that fleshed out beyond their respective roles as plot devices. I sometimes lost track of which female or male character I was reading about (mainly in the flashbacks).

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark Publishing for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!

Julie Clark is an auto-read author for me, and The Ghostwriter is her best yet. I loved being alongside the main character as she unravels the secrets of her family as her father is slowly dying. A propulsive read.

I’m a fan of Julie Clark’s books and her latest The Ghost Writer lives up to my expectations. Olivia Dumont is a ghost writer on the brink of financial ruin when a potential job prospect is presented to her. This is a twisty thriller as Olivia tries to solve a long ago mystery as she ghost writes a book for her father. I highly recommend this great novel!

This one was an incredible book. I think this is going to be a massive hit. I think some of the Ojai descriptions could’ve been relaxed a little bit because it felt more like a tourism advertisement than a setting in a book. I really enjoyed the twists and turns.

Thank you Sourcebooks for the gifted digital ARC!

Julie Clark absolutely nails so many of my favorite thriller elements with this one. Alternating POV chapters across different timelines, a hidden diary coming to light, everyone keeping secrets from each other, and an ending that will make you ask "how did I not see that coming!?"

I found the female MC Olivia easy to root for, and I was ultimately satisfied with how the story wrapped up.

And I'd be remiss not to mention THAT COVER! It is stunning.

Pub date: June 3

Olivia Dumont was an accomplished ghostwriter. Her father, Vincent Taylor was a best, selling author in his own right. Vincent's brother and sister, Danny and Poppy, had been murdered and Vincent had been accused of the murder. The 50-year anniversary of the murders was coming up and Vincent had decided to write a tell-all. He hired Olivia to be his ghostwriter. So this book is all about everything Olivia went through to get to the bottom of the story. Her father was dying and he had bouts of dementia. He had written his book longhand but Olivia found that there were many, many holes in it. He didn't want her to interview anyone because he didn't want anyone to know about the book. But she knew that the only way she was going to get the story told in earnest was the interview key people. Vincent's wife, Lydia, had left the family when Olivia was young. But she was key to this story. So Olivia sought her out and went to interview her. Margot had been Poppy's best friend, and Mark had been Danny's best friend. These were two more people that Olivia interviewed. But she never disclosed about the book. Another key figure in the story was Mr. Stewart who had been a teacher at the high school. He had been Lydia's track coach and had also fostered an outdoor program that Danny had participated in. It turns out he had made advances on Danny and other students.

Poppy had a camera on which she had recorded a great deal of the history. Olivia went to their old house and found the reels of film that Poppy had taken. She had captured an altercation between Danny and Mr. Stewart during which Mr. Stewart tried to kiss Danny. After that, she had told Vincent that she had something to tell him and that he was to meet her at the house. But when he got to the house she was dead. Danny died shortly thereafter. And while Vincent had been accused of the murders, Mr. Stewart had given him an airtight alibi.

This was a compelling and tragic saga. The author saw to it that Olivia did an incredible job pulling the story together. And the author in turn was a terrific storyteller. She wove a fascinating drama and a searing whodunit into what could easily be one of the better books of 2025. There is so much more I can say about this book but I don't want to spoil it for a reader. Nevertheless, I gave it five stars. I wish I could have given it. 10.

I was excited to read Julie Clark’s newest book as I really enjoyed her previous work, however I don’t think this one is as good as others. The Ghostwriter has a good character development and interesting family drama but it was just too slow for me. I also found myself skipping through some of the parts. Overall it was an interesting story but forgettable.

Thank you Sourcebooks Landmark and the author for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Julie Clark's ghostwriter is about a woman named Olivia reconnecting with her estranged father. Her father requests Olivia to assist in a memoir of his life unpacking the deaths of his two siblings. This novel is layered with character's points of view in present and past tense. As Olivia continues to interview and reconnect with her father, she begins to learn the truth about how her Aunt and Uncle were abruptly murdered. It is a fast paced read!

I know what your dad did...


This one is definitely a page turner.

The Ghostwriter, Olivia Dumont is the estranged daughter of Vincent Taylor, a very successful writer of horror novels. Vincent has lived his whole life under the suspicion that he brutally murdered his brother Danny and sister Poppy when they were teenagers. Vincent was never convicted and in fact had an alibi, but these tragedies followed him his whole life. Olivia is raised in a very dysfunctional family, in which her own mother abandons her and Vincent continually lets her down.

Present day Olivia has gone to lengths to hide where she comes from. No one in her personal or professional life is aware that she is this famous author's daughter and in fact she hasn't seen him in 15 years. Olivia, after having some success of her own in the publishing world, is now struggling to make ends meet. So when a surprise offer comes up, she jumps at the chance, until she realizes who has requested her, and only her, to ghostwrite this book, her father. After 50 years of silence Vincent Taylor wants to tell the real story of what happened to his siblings on the night they were murdered. But will he be telling the truth?

Olivia learns upon reconnecting with her father that he is dying and has a form of Alzheimer's. He has written notepads worth of jumbled notes for her to frame this book. However, several contradictions to his story and his loss of memory lead her to believe he is an unreliable narrator.

Things get really interesting when Olivia discovers Poppy's diary and hidden reels of video tape. Poppy's story differs from Vincent's recollection and Olivia has to wonder, is her father a murderer after all?

This book did keep me guessing. My only critique was the way Olivia's relationship with her mother played out. It was never really explained why they were estranged for so many years.

Readers of atmospheric, vibey mysteries will love this one.

4.5 stars rounded up!

I was so happy when I got approved for this advanced reader copy via NetGalley! Julie Clark has become an auto-buy author for me (and a shared favorite for my best friend and me!).

This story quickly sets up the circumstances of its protagonist, Olivia, an accomplished ghostwriter who has experienced significant difficulties and passed-down family trauma because of her family's dark past and the father she has not spoken to in years. Early on in the story, Olivia has fallen on difficult circumstances as a writer, so when offered her first ghostwriting opportunity in quite some time (to write a memoir on behalf of her estranged father), she faces the challenge of returning home to try to unravel the complicated truths of her father's story.

This is a book that kept me GUESSING, where I found myself very attached to both Olivia and her aunt Poppy, and I loved the use of multiple perspectives and time jumps to shape the reader's experience.

As a fan of Julie Clark, this story showcases her great skills as a writer, and I enjoyed her writing style and techniques just as much as I have before. I did not love this book quite as much as I loved The Lies I Tell or The Last Flight, but I definitely recommend this book to fans of a story with twists and turns that also has really poignant and meaningful takeaways.

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for my honest feedback.

This was my first book read by this author, and I will definitely be reading more of her books.
I love how the book was written from the POV of the murdered persons' diary and the present as well. Good story with many turns of events and a shocking ending. I really liked the idea of the book writing through a ghostwriter and how she went on a hunt to figure out the truth.

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for allowing me access to this ebook. Julie Clark is one of my favourite authors so I was very excited to receive this one!
The Ghostwriter is going to be released on June 3rd.
Olivia Dumont, daughter of infamous horror author Vincent Taylor, has spent her life hiding her family's dark past: her father was the prime suspect in his siblings' brutal murders. Facing financial ruin, she agrees to ghostwrite his final book, only to uncover long-buried family secrets. As Vincent finally breaks his silence, Olivia must confront the question: is her father ready to reveal the truth—or spin another tale?
This book was fascinating and very clever! I enjoyed it from beginning to end, I think it's best that everyone goes into this one blind and you won't be disappointed!

This one was a great blend of a book about books and a family mystery. It was creepy and atmospheric and full of drama, in the best possible way. I really liked the complex characterizations and the interwoven plot that shifted perspective and time to fully flesh out the whodunit elements. It was a great way to present a complicated backstory without info-dumping. It kept the pacing even and consistent sense of tension that really kept me in the story throughout the course of the book. I will be looking for more from Julie Clark!

Wow! What a ride that was! This is a must read for anyone who loves a suspenseful twisty mystery. Julie Clark just gets better and better. If you haven’t discovered her books yet, now is the time.

Olivia Dumont has been asked to ghostwrite her father’s memoir and hopefully be able to find out what happened fifty years ago in 1975 when his brother and sister were killed. His memory is fading and Olivia has to decipher the truth from his rambling notes and the confused stories he tells her. Follow her as she hunts down the answers and pieces together the puzzle of her family’s tragic past. This complex page turner will keep you engaged and turning the pages to get to the truth of that fateful day.

Many thanks to NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Landmark for the advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.