REVIEW: The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark
Book #58 of 2025, done!
📖BOOK: The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark
📘FORMAT: Hardback via Book of the Month Club
📚GENRE: Psychological Thriller/Mystery
📅RELEASED: June 3rd, 2024
⭐RATING: ★★★★★ (5/5)
👉 PURCHASE: Click Here to Purchase
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🧳SYNOPSIS:
”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.
💬THE VIBE:
Sharp, immersive, and psychologically rich. The kind of book that constantly makes you think you know what’s happening…until you don’t.
💡STANDOUT ELEMENTS:
Brilliant use of alternating perspectives and narrative control
A true “just one more chapter” kind of story
Twisty without being confusing, and emotionally grounded throughout
🧠WHAT STUCK:
The tension never lets up. Every time I thought I had it figured out, a new layer flipped the story upside down. Also? This may be my favorite book of the year so far.
👎WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME:
The font in the hardback was teeny tiny. I would’ve gladly taken a larger-print version, but that’s a personal quirk, not a ding on the story itself.
🤔IF YOU LIKE:
Unreliable narrators done the right way
Stories within stories
Complex female characters and ethical gray zones
🙅♀️IF YOU DON’T LIKE:
Slower-burn thrillers
Multiple points of view
Books that make you doubt every character’s motive
📝FINAL VERDICT:
5 stars.
Phenomenal. Twisty, smart, and emotionally layered. This is what I want all thrillers to be…clever without gimmicks and suspenseful without cheap shots. Read it. This is my first Julie Clark novel and if this was any indicator of the caliber of her work…sign me up for the rest of them!
