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Olivia Dumont is a ghostwriter; she has been quite successful at helping other people write their stories. But now after publicly calling out a misogynistic, amoral fellow ghostwriter, she’s persona non grata in the publishing world. When she is offered the job to ghostwrite a book by Vincent Taylor, a popular and prolific horror writer, she doesn’t want to take it. For several reasons. But she’s in dire need of money.
The main reason she would otherwise refuse to take this job? Vincent Taylor is her father, though no one knows this. Olivia has spent decades distancing herself from him. When Vincent was just a teenager, his sister and brother were both stabbed to death in their family home. Though he was cleared by police of the crime, most people in his town of Ojai, California, thought he was guilty. The whispers followed him, and then Olivia as she grew up.
But now as she returns to Ojai, she learns her father’s last book isn’t another horror novel — it’s a memoir, promising to finally share the truth of what happened in his youth. Olivia has to tease out the truth from lies, the facts from gossip, and face the tragedy that has so defined her life, as much as she’s tried to separate herself from it.
There was a lot of hype about The Ghostwriter when it came out, so I was eager to get my hands on it. I had to wait a while to get the ebook from my library. But it was worth the wait: it’s a well-crafted page-turner.
Rated: High. Profanity includes 16 uses of strong language, a dozen instances of moderate profanity, 7 uses of mild language, and almost 20 instances of the name of Deity in vain. Violence is moderate, with 10 or more places where both serious and fatal wounds with a lot of blood are mentioned. The story mentions sexual assault (of minors) several times, though without any details. Sexual content is minimal, with just brief references to kissing or making out.
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