The Ghostwriter
A Novel
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4.3 • 118 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
"Deftly and engagingly delves into this complicated not-so-cold case." —The New York Times
"Expertly plotted and exquisitely twisted." —Ashley Elston, #1 New York Times bestselling author of First Lie Wins
From the instant New York Times bestselling author of The Last Flight and The Lies I Tell comes a dazzling new thriller.
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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
To finish her father’s memoir, a daughter must face the horrendous murders that shaped him in this multifaceted thriller. Nearly ruined by a career misstep, professional ghostwriter Olivia Dumont takes on her biggest challenge: finishing her dying father’s last book, a soul-baring tell-all. But her father, the legendary horror author Vincent Taylor, didn’t just portray fear—he lived with tragic secrets that Olivia now has to confront. Blending dire family dysfunction with heart-in-your-throat mystery, Julie Clark has created a dark and compelling thriller. As her protagonist delves into her father’s devastating history and the murders that marked him, Clark deftly weaves past and present into seamless suspense, summoning the “ghosts” of Olivia’s ghostwriting. Her sensitive handling of the troubled father-daughter relationship adds depth to this multilayered mystery, making Olivia’s tumultuous inner world heartbreakingly real. With gasp-inducing twists we didn’t see coming, The Ghostwriter grabbed us and wouldn’t let go.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Clark (The Lies I Tell) effortlessly delivers on her clever, metatextual premise in this devilish thriller. Olivia Dumont had a successful career ghostwriting celebrity memoirs until her public rebuke of John Calder, a bestselling but misogynistic author, tarnished her reputation in the industry. Desperate for money, Dumont accepts a lucrative assignment to ghostwrite a book by horror superstar Vincent Taylor, despite her utter lack of experience writing fiction. The other problem? Taylor is Olivia's estranged father. Fifty years ago, he became the prime suspect in the 1975 double murder of his siblings, Danny and Poppy, in their Ojai, Calif., home. Though rumors about the killings persist, they remain unsolved, and Taylor still lives in Ojai, where he's been churning out bestsellers for decades. In recent years, his cognitive abilities have declined, but Olivia remains wary of him—especially when she realizes his new book is a supposed tell-all about the murders. Clark keeps readers guessing about Taylor's motives and guilt, all while playing scrupulously fair with the reader. It adds up to a deeply satisfying shocker in the vein of Riley Sager's The Only One Left.
Customer Reviews
Secrets and Lies
A really sad story but an awesome book.
Couldn’t put it down
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Wowza!
I found this wonderfully crafty... from the character development to the fresh, twisty story line. The book draws you in and keeps you reading, and guessing, until the end. Really enjoyed it.