The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark | Suspense/Mystery Fiction Review

If anyone has some patience to spare, I am in desperate need.

My 2 Cents for Free!

The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark

Released June 2025

Source: Purchased @ Gibson's Bookstore

Get it at your local library or see more @ Goodreads

The Ghost Writer is a book for people who have endless patience. I’ve discovered that person is not me.

This story is about Olivia who is a ghost writer who has changed her name because her father is a famous writer with murder accusations from the past that surround him like a haze. She doesn’t want anything to do with him because he was a terrible father. Can’t say as I blame her really. Anyhow, now he is penning his last book, suffering from Lewy Body Dementia and needs her assistance to bring it all together. She accepts because she needs money. Can’t blame her for that either. The book then bounces back and forth between the present day and the past as she attempts to make sense of his scribblings and clues that may or may not reveal the murderer of the uncle and aunt who died before her birth.

It’s not a boring book and the chapters are short so it was easy enough to keep going but towards the end I kept saying to myself “let’s wrap this up already and tell ME WHO THE KILLER IS”. Instead, pages upon pages go by where things are hashed and rehashed and we are thrown back into the past time and again with more questions than answers. In the present, a game is being played out when a freaking conversation with two people would’ve resulted in answers immediately. But noooooo. We get more red herrings for our patience. I don’t think that’s cool. I think that’s annoying. It exhausted my patience and ruined my good nature, lol. But as I said, it’s me. Probably. Not the book. Most people are loving this story but I could’ve done without at least 75 pages. In the end, I was still left with a few questions about an important plot point regarding her parents and I am left feeling a bit aggravated about it.

If you like murder mysteries and have some patience and kindness left in your heart, unlike myself, you will likely enjoy this book more than I did. I’d give 3 ½ stars because, as I said, it wasn’t boring and I kept reading to get to the reveal but it was terribly overstuffed, if you ask me.

Final Rating: ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Publisher Plot Synopsis 

In June 1975 the Taylor family shatters in a single night when two teenage siblings are found dead in their 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.