I’ve enjoyed a couple of other Julie Clark books and I really enjoyed The Ghostwriter too. I loved the premise of Olivia ghostwriting her father’s tell-all book which brings a lot of family trauma back to the surface. It is a great mystery/thriller which kept me guessing throughout and trying to come up with theories. There are times when I thought I’d figured something out but then I was proven wrong.

I loved the dual timeline which features perspectives of different characters involved in the story, and also includes Poppy’s diary entries which add another element. It was so interesting to gradually find out more things about what happened to Poppy and Danny decades ago. It felt like we were seeking out information along with Olivia and finding out parts of the truth with her which was fun.

This is a slower burn than some other thrillers but it suits the book well and the characters are all well-developed due to the style of the writing. A great read that I’d recommend.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for gifting me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

📚 Book Review 📚

Vincent Taylor is a renowned author who finds himself with a debilitating disease and wants to write one last book. A book very close to his life.

Fifty years ago, Vincent’s brother and sister were murdered in his family home. No-one was ever caught, no motives were ever revealed. For fifty years, Vincent has lived his life in the place he grew up with the finger of suspicion and hatred pointed at him by many of the inhabitants. He has never spoken about what he knows, until now.

However, Vincent’s health has deteriorated so much that he needs a ghost writer and who better to do this job, than his estranged daughter Olivia.

When Olivia starts working with her father, she finds that he has many secrets which have been so well hidden that she has to ask herself if her father is actually a cold blooded killer.

The book is told through two perspectives and over dual timelines. Olivia finds the diaries of her teenage aunt which tells the story of her family and the events that unfolded around them that fateful summer of 1975. It is a slow burner but full of clues and well written descriptions until the crushing revelations at the end.

I enjoyed this book and getting to know the characters from the past as well as the present. This is a great read and although a little slow in places, I really enjoyed this.

I’d like to thank Bonnier Books, NetGalley and the author for the arc and the fantastic opportunity, in exchange for my honest feedback 😊

Book released on 3rd June 2025

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’ve read a few of Julie Clark’s books before and really enjoyed them. This one is no exception, and I’d go as far as to say it’s my favourite.

The great thing about this author is that she comes up with the most unique storylines, and it’s not all about the twist. I found the whole story so captivating and didn’t find myself wanting to rush to get to the twists at all.

I thought that Olivia was a really intriguing character.

Writer, Olivia Dupont, is a feisty woman, who stands up for what she believes to be right, especially when it comes to misogynistic men. Sadly, that has backfired and she owes another author a huge amount of money. With her house on the market and her career cancelled, Olivia is forced to take on the job of writing her estranged father’s memoirs.

Told by Olivia’s experience of interviewing her ailing father and in flashbacks to the past, Olivia uncovers the truth about her family past.

The pace is relatively slow and the plot was well thought out, but didn’t grip my attention as much as I’d hoped. An enjoyable read, but not as dark and twisty as I had expected.

3 ⭐️ Thanks to Netgalley, Julie Clark and Bonnier for an ARC of this book.

This is the third time I’ve had the privilege of being an early reader and reviewer for a Julie Clark novel, and once again, I’m so glad I said yes. The Ghostwriter is everything I’ve come to expect from her: smart, tightly written, emotionally layered, and compulsively readable.

Clark consistently gives us intelligent, capable female leads, and Olivia is no exception. I loved how grounded and relatable she felt—even while grappling with the weight of her mistakes and a notorious family legacy. Hiding the fact that she’s the daughter of Vincent Taylor—the horror writer at the center of a decades-old double murder—has shaped Olivia’s entire life. Now, she’s been asked to ghostwrite his final book... only to find out he’s finally ready to talk about what really happened that night in 1975 when Vincent’s brother and sister were murdered in their family home.

The complicated father-daughter dynamic at the heart of this story gives it some emotional depth and brings a very human element to a plot rooted in long-held secrets and decades-old trauma.

The twist near the end is satisfying as I truly couldn’t work out exactly who was responsible for the murders. The nod to one of Clark’s previous books was a clever bonus and put a big smile on my face.

Easy, engaging, and entertaining, I read it in less than 24 hours. If I had one quibble, I wish the ending was just a bit more dramatic with Olivia possibly placed in a tense and/or dangerous situation.

I love Olivia! I really enjoyed peeling back the story through her father’s memories and poppy’s cameras and videos and then visiting all the towns people. I guessed about next door and Danny but it didn’t spoil anything. I loved the flight by Julie Clark but this one just slightly more! Well done!

Ghostwriter Olivia Dumont is no stranger to secrets—especially when it comes to her infamous father, horror novelist Vincent Taylor. Decades ago, he was accused of murdering his own siblings when just a teenager, a scandal that never quite faded. Now, fifty years later, he wants to break his silence—with Olivia as the ghostwriter of his final book. What no one knows is that Olivia is actually his daughter.

As she arrives at his crumbling estate, she’s met with the confusing, erratic notes of a dying man. Is he confessing, deflecting, or finally telling the truth? Through the help of her late aunt Poppy’s old diary and home videos, Olivia begins to piece together the tragedy that tore their family apart.

This one leans more toward slow burn than thriller, and I was completely drawn in by the first half—creepy house, unreliable narrator energy, dark family legacy. But the second half lost some of its grip for me, spending too long in the past with dysfunctional teenaged dynamics that didn’t quite sustain my interest. I found myself wishing the reveals had come a little sooner.

Still, a compelling read with a strong setup, and a must for fans of family secrets and metafictional twists.

Thank you to Netgalley and the UK publishers for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is my second book from Julie Clark, and it certainly won't be my last. This book was started as a bit more of a slow burn, and it did admittedly take my a second to get invested in the different timelines.

However, I enjoyed the different POVs and I love when a book feels like a book within a book. The diary entries from Poppy were a nice touch, and the scenes where footage was being watched was described in such a way that I felt I was watching them alongside them.

The ending was great and I didn't see it coming. Would recommend.

This book had me hooked from the start. Good characters and twists throughout. This is my first book by this author and definitely won't be the last. Thanks Netgalley for letting me read this book for an honest review

3.75 stars
Having seen good things about Julie Clark's books, the premise of this one immediately drew me in.
I liked how the chapters flipped back and forth from the present day to 1975 and the lead up to the murders. That definitely kept my attention, as did the way that the secrets and goings on are parcelled out bit by bit.
I also appreciated that it was difficult to tell who was telling the truth. It had an unreliable narrator that made sense, given his failing health and memory.
I did have a feeling that their PE teacher would be involved in some way, even if it wasn't the way that I initially thought.
You could tell that Danny was keeping a secret, yet to find out what he did to Lydia had me feeling a lot less sympathy for him overall.
I get that hurt people hurt people, but it put me at even more of a distance from him and meant that I didn't care either way about his death in the end.
In fact, I didn't find any of the characters to be particularly likeable, apart from Poppy, really.
It was also slow in parts and could have been snappier. I also wouldn't really class it as a thriller either.
However, I am still intrigued enough to go back and read her earlier books at some point and will be keeping an eye out to see what Julie Clark does next.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

this book held so much atmosphere and suspense within its pages. and i think even from the small works of Julies that i have read, that this is a common brilliance to her books. she really managed to pull you right in and feel exactly how she wants you to. or have no choice to.
the plot was original and smart and i was hooked the whole way through becoming more and more intrigued as things went on. i was so eager to know what was what and how it would play out.
its almost a family drama but so much more as it weaves a mystery and darker scope over it all. you question the narrators you question yourself and you wonder just what to believe until right at the end.
we have a tragedy in this book of a family where two siblings are murdered. there is one sibling survivor and that is Vincent who discovered his dead brother and sister. but even there we are not quite sure. there was a whisper of something between these siblings. or how they fell into roles within the family. and there are louder whispers of Vincent's involvement in the deaths. but he had an alibi so all good right?
Vincent went on to become a successful writers. but his home life was anything but a success.
his daughter Olivia is estranged from him. she even changed her name an has tried to keep that distance between them locked down. she is a ghostwriter herself now. but then work involves her in her own turmoil and she is at a loss.
thats when Vincent comes asking for her to write his final book. but can she risk it. this will bring her back into his life. and back into the open as someone related to this man. but Vincent says he wants to tell all whilst he can. and how can Olivia say no both personally and professionally she is desperate for this story.
but is this the story Olivia needed to know. is her determination for answers putting all she knows and is at risk. will the ending to this story destroy her more than running from it.
this book is a high. and its take you on an adventure of a mystery,drama family thriller ride.
i loved it. the pacing, the plot all down to absolute times perfection. a perfect read for me.

The Ghost writer by Julie Clark is the second book from the author that I have read. I read her previous novel ‘The Lies I tell’ So I was really looking forward to this one.
Olivia Dumont is a Ghostwriter as the title suggests. She is heavily in debt and needs a job fast to pay off the thousands of dollars that she owes. She has even put her house on the market to clear her debt.
She has been offered a job by the legendary author Vincent Taylor to write his memoir and the truth what happened to be siblings in 1975 which rumours say that he killed them. Little does anyone know that Olivia is Vincent estranged daughter, and they haven’t spoken in years.
This intriguing story is quite a slow burn and lot of information to take in. But it is such an emotional story, of trauma, abandonment and coping with degenerative illness. I did get immersed in this story but at times I did feel a bit overwhelmed when the story went back and forth in time to 1975 in the latter stages of this story. 4 stars from me.

Slow burner of a read this, but it pulled you in as you followed Olivia on her quest to find out what really happened the night her auntie and uncle were killed back in 1975 as she helps her estranged father write his last book.

Lots of red herrings in this but I was pleased I'd worked out who was involved in the killings.

Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to review this book, this is my honest opinion.

Olivia Dumont is hesitatant to agree to ghostwrite the memoirs of a well known author.

One of the reasons is that the author is her father.

Her father's two siblings died and she is sure that this will raise memories that for her father, who is suffering from Lewy body dementia and that he will be unable to cope.

This book is more about Olivias story than it is about her father and I quite liked her. Most of us have been through family trauma and I loved how the covered almost every imagination that could arise with the issues Olivia has gone, and is going through..

An amazing and interesting read..

In desperate financial straits, ghostwriter Olivia Dumont has no choice but to accept her latest commission. However, the job is her estranged father’s memoir; a bestselling author who is now suffering from a neurogenerative illness. Moreover, her father has always been a suspect in the murder of both his siblings in the seventies.

Dealing with both the complex relationship with her father and a fifty-year-old murder case, Olivia must unpick her father’s story through the layers of lies and illness to find the truth.

A compelling and complex mystery for fans of Riley Sager’s The Last One Left and A J Finn’s End of Story.

With many thanks to Netgalley for this free arc and I am leaving this unbiased review voluntarily

The Last Flight and The Lies I Tell were both excellent reads so I was very excited to be able to read her latest. It’s a slow burner to start but the pace and tension eventually start to climb as the book goes on. The characters are all on point and the story is told from different perspectives - none of them 100% reliable and leaves you questioning everything. There is a wonderful film noir atmosphere about the book and it flows beautifully. This is a dark and twisted game played out by father and daughter that culminates in a very good unpredictable ending. Another winner from Julie

You can’t beat a story about an estranged daughter, a famous author father and a life story that has to be told.

This is the story of a ghostwriter who is going through hard times and is hired to ghostwrite a novel for a famous author. There are two problems - the author is her father and she doesn’t do novels. Upon learning that she is actually going to ghostwrite the memories of her father surrounding the death of his two siblings she realises this is a much harder job than she thought.

This is her story of researching her past, her father’s past and coming to terms with his own decline as he suffers from Lewy Body Dementia. There is so much back story in this book and it was a truly enjoyable read.