I loved reading Black Eyed Susans so it was a natural choice to want to read this book. I thought Paper Ghosts was a strange title but it is perfect for the story. The posters are the only thing left as reminders that the missing person hasn't been found. Each fading in time until there isn't anything left but a ghostly faded shape.
Carl Feldman's mind isn't as sharp as it use to be and I understood that he had dementia but when a young woman turns up and tells his carers that she is his daughter he knows that she isn't. She strikes up a deal with him to get him away on take part in a road trip with her visiting places that are in the photos he most treasured. His mind is bright enough to make a deal with her and my heckles come up. Just how much does this man know. This man who stood trial for the murder of young women and walked away free.
This is quite a macabre journey, as she is the sister of one of the girls in the pictures that has never been found. She tries to jog Carl's memory with walk throughs of how the girls were believed to have been taken. At first I was like, 'What are you doing with this killer?', would he try to kill her?, had he really killed all these girls? And just how much did he really remember? But Grace had a callous streak too. Just how far would she push him? Some of the chapters began with eerie photos from Carl's collection. The pictures seemed to be the key.
This is a tight tension story where I felt that I was walking on egg shells all the time. It was pure anticipation of something is going to give on this page, or the next, or the next. She was holding so much back from him but I couldn't make my mind up if Carl really didn't know much or if he had dementia and really didn't know anything anymore. A clever story. Not a heart in your mouth read but a couple of looks over my shoulder as I felt so uneasy.
I wish to thank NetGalley and Michael Joseph Books for an e-copy of this book which I have reviewed honestly.

This was a very twisted story of a woman who thinks she has found the killer of her sister when she was a child. She convinces the home where he resides that she is his daughter and takes him on a journey to reach a conclusion. I wasn't sure about this one.

This book is an absolute page turner, I think its Julia Heabertin's best book thus far.
A young girl goes in search of her sister's killer...........she is convinced she knows who did it........ a serial killer named Carl. She befriends him and takes him on a Texas road trip. As the journey continues the reader begins to wonder who is taking who on a road trip,who is playing games with whom? Who is in control?
No more spoilers.
This book kept me riveted to it!

I kept putting this book off for no particular reason and what a mistake that was! A great story and insight into how bereaved people work to try and get answers...
Captivating and too hard to put down!

I struggled to get into this book to begin with, but it picked up a bit in the middle. In afraid to say I felt a little let. Down by the ending.
The book follows Grace on her journey to find out if suspected serial killer Carl Feldman killed her sister. Rebecca went missing when Grace was 12 and her body was never found.
Throughout the book Grace and Carl go on a roadtrip, stopping at places where various women disappeared. Carl has suspected Alzheimer's so Grace is hoping to jog his memory.
It's not an awful book and it is very well written, I just couldn't get into it.

I’m not sure if it was schadenfreude but the very first line made me laugh. This book was written with feeling and compassion and was cleverly engineered.
For a while the deeper meaning behind the story wasn’t apparent to me and so I struggled at times with the point of it - and then the light came on and everything became clear.
I still smiled at some of the events in the main two characters time together and with the stray animals they acquired along the way.
A well thought out story to highlight something which blights many.
I would highly recommend this book.

I think you’ll love it or hate it. I found it confusing in parts but an enjoyable read all the same. Wasn’t sure if Carl had killed her sister though Grace is sure he did? There’s a lot of book here and I had to re read some parts to keep up with it, I thought it was sad but thrilling at the same time? The ending was very apt too. I’d read more from the author even though I expected slightly more from this one after her previous effort I did enjoy it.

A great journey in every sense of the word. A deeply flawed protagonist and a possible serial killer embark on a complex exploration of a country and themselves.

I particularly loved the satisfyingly ambiguous ending.

Would highly recommend.

I received a digital ARC of #PaperGhosts from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was really excited by the premise of this book. I wanted to know if Carl had killed Rachel, and if so, why. I was intrigued to know whether he really did have dementia or was just extremely clever and cunning, to give the appearance of having dementia in order to get away with his crimes.

The book started really well and I was well and truly hooked. I couldn't put it down and had to find out more. I couldn't wait to get to the big revealing twist that I was expecting. I was constantly wondering whether Carl was faking the dementia as he definitely appeared to be too lucid for a dementia sufferer a lot of the time.

For me, the ending was very anti-climactic and was somewhat of a disappointment. Yes we find out whether he killed Rachel and 2 of the other characters that Grace suspects him of killing, but it doesn't feel like a satisfying conclusion to a book that up until that point was such an intense read. I was left feeling a bit disappointed and wanting more. I think the ending could have been so much better and there could have been a much larger twist which would have been more shocking.

Having read (and loved) Black Eyed Susans I had high hopes for this. Whilst enjoyable it did not compare. I found the premise unlikely and the characters not particularly engaging. All in all just an okay read.

A road trip with a difference. Was Carl really the murderer that Grace thought he was? Carl has dementia, so whatever he says can’t be relied upon, but Grace doesn’t care. I really wanted to like and enjoy this story, but sadly I couldn’t and I didn’t. It was ponderous and seemed to take a long time to get through all the pages/percentages. The beginning was intriguing, but then my interest started to flag. I did love the photos and thought they were a nice touch. Sorry but I found it all a bit tedious and Grace a letdown. I’m sure lots of other people will enjoy this book though.

I didn’t really believe in the story right from the outset as it wasn’t credible that a girl, albeit an obsessive one, would track down a potential serial killer and then put herself in the situations described. However I thought the writing was eloquent and flowed well and I didn’t give up as I enjoyed the ride.

In a book world filled with the same type of stories, it's amazing to find an original plot!
Great pace, thought out characters and a plot with no gaping holes.
Would highly recommend this book!
Thank you for the advanced reading opportunity.

Thank you to netgalley.co.uk for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

This novel was interesting. I don't read a lot of thriller/suspense novels, but this was so good it makes me want to try more. Heaberlin's writing was so intense it really sucked me from the first chapter. I found myself getting frustrated with the characters. I loved this book and I look forward to reading more from this author!

Heaberlin, author of Black Eyed Susans has created another excellent read. It is gripping and mesmerising from the 1st page, packed with tension until its denouement and hence extremely difficult to put down.
Grace’s 15 year old sister Rachel never made the 3 mile bike ride she set off on. Since then Grace has produced a diary of how to cope and to hunt down her killer. Carl Feldman, the man she is convinced is guilty, is now in a Texas care home with dementia. Grace poses as Carl’s daughter and takes him on a road trip to places where key murder victims were found to see if it will generate memories that can explain her sister’s disappearance. Whilst booking into hotel rooms, using her carefully saved money with someone deemed a murderer is perhaps not the wisest thing to do, she is nonetheless compelled to execute her plan. There is a steady tension throughout as she puts into place her carefully woven plans. If he is a killer she is exposing herself to a lot of danger…
Carl is a fantastic character. He has both an edge of menace, as well as a comical and amusing element to him that makes him almost impossible to dislike – yet you never know whether he can be trusted. Whilst he may have dementia and there are some behaviours that make it evident he has, he is nevertheless also sharp as a coyote, quick-witted, calm and amusing. Things, as you might expect, don’t go to plan.
Using a character with dementia made for an insightful yet creative approach that is also realistic. Grace equally is a likeable character; someone you can readily relate to, in a situation with a life-long determination to find out what happened to her sister. The writing and story line are refreshing and original, the journey doubles up as one of self-discovery and the ending has a decent twist. An excellent book with appeal to broad readership to strongly recommend.

I found this to be a chilling, disturbing and very thought-provoking read. It was a slow-burn book, which can put people of a book, but the writing is done in such a way that it keeps you wanting to read.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the book in exchange for an honest review.
I found this a difficult book to read, it just seemed to go from one place to another and the whole point of the book was lost. I am sorry that I didn’t finish the book but none of the characters were likeable or made you want to continue reading.

Firstly, thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me a pre-release review copy of this novel. Apologies to those for only just getting around to reading this book.

Briefly, an outline of the story. Grace grew up with her older sister, Rachel. Sadly, Rachel went out and never returned. Over the years that follow Grace never gives up looking for answers to Rachel's disappearance. Eventually, this leads her to Carl Feldman, a once acclaimed photographer. Feldman was tried and acquited for the murder of another young woman then went into hiding after his trial. Grace manages to link him to a string of similar women who disappeared over a period of time. With Feldman now living out the end of his life with Dementia in a halfway house for ex-cons, Grace strikes up a deal with the manager to get him out and take him on a road trip across Texas to revisit some of the disappearances to see if she can stir up some old memories and finally get the answers about her sister she so desperately needs.

In all honesty, this novel caught my eye because of the emotional aspect. Currently having a family member who is suffering from this cruel disease, it struck a chord with me. The book is billed as a psychological thriller but it's more intriguing than thrilling. There is very little in the way of suspense, what happened next, or who did it? It's more a chronicle of Grace and Carl's road trip across state together, her trying to jog his memory; him not making it easy be it as a result of his illness or by design. That said, it's an interesting read as their relationship develops. You do want to keep reading just to see if he really did have anything to do with the disappearances or whether Grace is just on a wild goose chase. Although some of the plot does seem a little far fetched - particularly the steps Grace, a young woman in her early to mid twenties, goes to to cover her tracks.

When reviewing this book, C.J. Tudor, author of The Chalk Man, wrote: 'This book haunted me. The writing is beautiful and chilling, laced with a subtle dark humour, and the multiple twists build to a perfect icy shiver of an ending. I loved it!' I would have to say he was reading a different book than I was. It's an interesting read and well worth the time, but, for me, it does lack any of the qualities that would make it a thriller.

This one was a hard one to review for me, my initial rating being 3 stars. However, after writing my review and thinking back over the plot, I’ve now settled on a 2 star rating. Although I found Paper Ghosts easy to read, I doubt I would of been so inclined to continue if I wasn’t stuck in the airport/on a plane for most of the last 40%. Like a number of other readers, this novel started out with real promise for me and I was keen to see what happened. However, this then began to wane slightly. As things began to come to light, I started to feel disappointed. For me the ending was a massive anti-climax and left me wondering what an earth the point was.

It comes down to being some fanatical ravings from Grace who has pulled much of her theories from thin air. I understand that she was a confused child who missed her sister and got carried away, but it doesn’t make for the most interesting of finishes.

I also found that I didn’t really take to any of the characters, which always make it hard for me to stay interested. I felt for Grace but then she continued to make stupid mistakes which started to bore me.

Continuously the writer made me think that something exciting was going to happen, just to find that it was more of the same and that nothing was actually happening at all.

The 2 guys that kept trying to kill Grace? Ok, I understand how that was important to the story as it showed Carl hadn’t killed that girl, however how inept they all were in those final scenes was just irritating and uninteresting.

And then to find that Carl works it all out with an educated guess? Mhm. I hardly think Grace should be training anyone, the only time she was ever in real danger she had luck on her side and someone there to save her.

This is a really creepy thriller, which concerns a girl, and the man she thinks murdered her sister, and several other girls. However, he has not been convicted, and is know apparently suffering from Alzheimers. He was, in his time, a very skilled photographer, and the girl takes him onto a trip to try to find her sister's body.
They are accompanied by a stray dog, and several hallucinations of his unfettered mind.
Eventually she finds out much more than she expected, and none of it is what she expected.
The man is unscrupulous, confused, and at times unpredictable.
The characters are well-written, but slightly edgy, and the plot varies from truth to total lies!
Thank you to Net Galley, and the publisher for allowing me to read this book.