The Ghostwriter - Julie Clark - ★★★.½

AUTHOR: Julie Clark

GENRE: Suspense-Drama.

PUBLICATION DATE: June 3, 2025

RATING: 3.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A contemporary suspense-drama about a dysfunctional family and its secrets. (So what’s new, right?) Interesting characters and plot, but somehow, this doesn’t deliver on the ‘wow’ factor. I wasn’t bored, but I also wasn’t too invested. Recommended, but not a must-read.

Plot Preview:

Forty-four-year-old Olivia Dumont had a successful career as a ghostwriter until one day, she put her foot in her mouth and sabotaged her future. So when her agent calls her for a ghostwriting assignment for the famous horror author Vincent Taylor, Olivia knows she has no choice but to accept the job.

Everyone knows that Vincent is infamous for being the prime suspect in the murder of his two siblings Danny and Poppy fifty years ago. But what no one, including Olivia’s agent, knows is that Vincent is Olivia’s estranged father. Now that he has summoned Olivia to ghostwrite his final book, is he finally ready to reveal the truth about the past?

The story comes to us in Olivia’s first-person POV from the contemporary timeline, and from two other character’s first-person perspectives from the 1970s timeline.

I have read only one other book by Julia Clark: ‘The Lies I Tell’. Though not a favourite, it was good enough for me to want to try another novel by her. Just like ‘The Lies I Tell’, this is not a fast-paced mystery-thriller. Most of it feels more like a domestic suspense. The storyline was interesting enough, but the execution was a bit too repetitive and slow.

Bookish Yays:

🎥 Poppy – such a fabulous character! She does feel older than her age, but given that her arc is set in the 1970s when kids were probably more mature, I will give her age-appropriateness the benefit of the doubt.

🎥 Tom – has a relatively minor role, but I liked him for being a positive male character, a rarity in this genre. I love how he stood up for his principles. Wish we had had more of him in the story. Then again, I am glad we didn’t because a greater focus on him would have turned the book into a romantic suspense.

🎥 The portrayal of the 1970s in the setting of Ojai, California – feels utterly realistic.

🎥 All the reveals about ghostwriting – wow! I knew the process wouldn’t be easy, but this story actually details the tricky intricacies involved in stringing someone else’s thoughts into a cohesive book.

🎥 The unreliable narrator trope pops up thanks to Vincent’s diagnosis. However, the medical condition makes the lack of reliability a convincing one, and it is even used fairly well to add to the tension.

Bookish Mixed Bags:

🎞 This book is a great example of the author’s plotting skills, but despite the regular surprises it throws our way, it also feels fairly straightforward. I was never bored at any point, but I also never felt compelled to read ‘one more chapter.’ Luckily, I was prepared for a domestic drama because it never delivers as a ‘thriller’.

🎞 Olivia mostly acts her age, and is often a sensible character. This is why a couple of her decisions and actions feel contrived. Like how she doesn’t visit her mother until the plot is ready for her to finally do it and create the next big reveal.

🎞 Most of the characters except Poppy have their greys. So they are nicely complex and suitable for this genre. However, the character development is somewhat surface-level and hazy; we don’t know why certain characters behave that way.

🎞 The dual timeline with clear time indicators for the back-and-forth jumps. The idea and most of the implementation of the flashbacks was excellent. One of the scenes was especially poignant. However, some of the reveals come to us readers much before Olivia learns the truth, if ever she does. It is trickier to know more than the lead character in a mystery as we then have to wait patiently for her to catch up.

🎞 The first half is understandably slow due to the build-up, but the second half goes even slower as there are too many reveals from the historical timeline to fill in the explanations. These feel somewhat repetitive as well. I wish the reveals had been more staggered throughout the plot.

🎞 With a limited number of characters, it is not too tricky to figure out the villain of the story so there’s not much suspense in the ‘who’. However, the ‘how’ and ‘why’ aren’t so easy to guess. There are certain surprising twists even within this predictability.

Bookish Nays:

📽 So much of secret-keeping and misleading! No one says anything directly! This has become a hallmark of this genre and regular suspense drama readers might have more patience with all the prevarication. But as I am not a big fan of this genre, my patience was tested to its limits.

📽 Too much of convenience in the “investigation”. Whatever has not been found for almost half a century is suddenly discovered by Olivia on her very first attempt. I wish there had been a more realistic portrayal of her challenges. Cold cases can hardly be resolved so smoothly!

📽 The rationale for the distancing of Olivia mother – not at all convincing. Considering how she was a key character, this feels like an important gap.

Overall, while I am not blown away with the book, I am also not disappointed. It entertained me enough while it lasted, and except for the extensive secret-keeping, nothing else bugged me much.

Recommended to fans of domestic dramas and complex characters.

3.5 stars, rounding down wherever applicable for the overdose of the hush-hush behaviour.

My thanks to Sourcebooks Landmark for providing the DRC of “The Ghostwriter” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.