Paper Ghosts is a compelling read about a young girl’s struggle to be brave in the wake of her older sisters being missing and presumed dead.

The unnamed protagonist believes her sister was killed by Carl Feldman a fine art photographer and suspected serial killer living out his days in a halfway house. Does he really have early onset dementia and no memory of the supposed killings he was once accused of or is he pretending? Was he wrongly accused of those murders or is she putting her life in danger by driving around remote Texas with a serial killer?

This was the first book I had read by Julia Heaberlin and if Paper Ghosts is any indication of the standard of her books then I can declare myself a fan.

The layout of the book contributes to the story as it is interspersed with eerie photos mentioned within the book and pages from a notebook of fears written by the protagonist in an attempt to conquer her numerous fears.

The prologue is designed to pull the reader in right from the start and had the effect of making me connect with the unnamed protagonist from an early stage.

“When she was twelve, my sister fell into a grave…my sister climbed out of that grave by herself without a scratch on her.

I look back and think that’s the day, the moment, she was cursed. When she was nineteen, she disappeared, like a lasso dropped from the clouds and snatched her up.

I know it was the day I became afraid of things.”

In the present unnamed girl Is sat in a halfway house playing chess with the man she suspects of killing her sister. Carl claims not to remember her each time she visits and questions her about who she is. She tells him she is his daughter and she wants to take him on a road trip of his suspected kill sites in the hope it will jog his memory and she can discover if she has the blood of a killer in her veins.

She was 12 when her sister disappeared on her way to a babysitting job.

Carl was found by a police officer wandering around and that is how he ended up at this halfway house run by a woman named Mrs T who suspects the girl is lying but is annoyingly willing to let her drive off with a serial killer.

“The famous documentary and fine-art photographer Carl Louis Feldman, suspected of stalking young women and stealing them for years, said he couldn’t remember his own name. It took fingerprints and a sample of DNA to do that. A local hospital guessed a diagnosis of early onset dementia and sent him back out into the world.”

Carl has a list of conditions he wants the girl to fulfil if he is going to come with her including some ominous requests like a shovel that would have any normal person running for the hills. The girl is clearly not normal though and that is one of the things I love about her character. She is outwardly tough and highly skilled but inside she is the same young and vulnerable girl she was when her sister first disappeared.

The girl plans to follow her own map of places associated with women she believes Carl has killed. Her hope is that she will be able to discover once and for all what happened to her sister. She also uses a series of photos of the victims in an attempt to get him to remember something.

“These girls – these cold cases – are my insistent, beating hope, the only way I know to jog Carl’s conscience. I have to follow their stories, because in Rachel’s case, there is no story to tell, no dot. No one remembers a girl on a silver mountain bike that morning. No one saw anything. She was simply gone.”

Along the way she forms an uneasy alliance with Carl and discovers to her horror that there are parts of him she could almost like.

“Bad people are to be found everywhere, but even among the worst there may be something good.”

Paper Ghosts is definitely a character led novel and the characters in it are outstanding and part of what makes it such a compulsive read. I can’t remember the last time I got so deeply drawn into a psychological thriller. It made me mad every time I had to put it down for other lesser things like work or eating and drinking.

The sense of anticipation built up throughout Paper Ghosts is immense and this book haunted me long after I finished it. I have been recommending it to everyone I speak to. Fantastic book, in fact it was so good that after finishing it I ordered more of the authors books.

Paper Ghosts was an interesting read for me, but I’m not sure how I feel about it.

There were some strong points - I loved the whole road trip idea and visiting the graves and crime scenes of Carl’s victims is a chilling if fascinating premise albeit unbelievable but it was this which attracted me. Waco is on the list and some places mentioned were done so with aplomb - places you might have heard of, but not in the way Julia writes about them! I’ve been on a road trip in Texas and much of the sense of space, empty roads going nowhere were very atmospheric.

The rest of it - A bit strange - someone taking a man on a road trip by saying she’s his daughter when she’s not, just to see if a trip around Texas will jog his memory about a possible murder....and the fact he has dementia...not sure which character had the worst mental state to be fair.

This unreliable narrator is probably what drives the book but it just got me lost .

To end on a high note however, the use of the photographs - the illustrations throughout the novel and their role in the novel gave this a really nice edge.

It wasn’t for me, but I’m sure others will find the elements I didn’t.

I personally found this a difficult read, but well worth the perseverance to reach the end which turned out to be a surprisingly good story line..

A really good, descriptive, well written novel. Characters with great depth and layers. This was a really enjoyable and interesting book, easy to read and containing all the things you expect from a mystery and a lot of unanticipated connections throughout. If you're looking for something different and refreshing then this is the book for you.

I found paper ghosts a very confusing book to read. The story idea was interesting and drew me in, but unfortunately in reality I didn’t enjoy it that much and found certain parts very bizarre and uncomfortably odd. Throughout the book I felt like I was waiting for something to happen, which just didn’t.

Told from the viewpoint of a girl who is searching for answers to what happened to her older sister who was abducted year before, on her way to a babysitting job. The main character (we don't find out her name until near the end) abducts the man she feels is responsible by posing as his daughter wanting to take him on a trip. Carl, a former photographer, has dementia and claims he can't remember, but is this the truth?

I knew I was either going to love this one or hate it, and I loved it. It was well-written and the author keeps you wondering just how much Carl does remember and what he has planned. It did become a little meandering in a couple of places, but it always pulled things around very quickly. I would put it in my top ten reads of this year so far and would probably reread this at some point.

Thanks to Netgalley and publishers, Penguin UK - Michael Joseph, for the opportunity to review an ARC.

I liked this one, but didn't love it. I felt the concept was extremely interesting but the execution didn't work as much as I had hoped. And that might be due to high expectations from the author's previous book mixed with the idea of the story sounding.
With that said, I was interested the whole way through and found it did keep me guessing. I still enjoy the author's writing style and look forward to the next release. 4 Stars.

I'm afraid I had to give up on this. I'd struggled, but persevered, with 'Black Eyed Susans' but this was even more confused and muddled and once I ended up feeling somewhat the same after several chapters, I decided to move on to something I was actually going to enjoy. Reading should be a pleasure. This was not. Sorry.

Paper Ghosts is an interesting one for me, in that I really don’t know how I feel about it.

Set in the State of Texas, it follows the story of a young woman who convinces a man to take a trip with her. After convincing the state guardian at his halfway house she is his daughter, they leave on a 10 day journey of discovery. What they don’t know is that she isn’t his daughter. In fact she’s not related at all. What’s more she is convinced he is her sisters murder. A man whose mind she is determined to unlock and find out the truth once and for all. Unfortunately for her though, he has dementia.

Wonderfully written, Paper Ghosts is a winding tale that follows a tightrope of mental health. Not only does Carl have dementia, but our narrator is completely unbalanced. This left for a rather uncomfortable reading experience as the story often lost its fluidity.

To say Paper Ghosts keeps you guessing is an understatement. I had no idea throughout whether Carl would turn out to be a murderer or even whether either of them would survive their experience together. On the one hand a book that keeps you guessing is a good thing, but added to the instability throughout, it just struggled to hold my attention. I felt more of a connection and sympathy to Carl – a potential murder – than to our narrator. The ‘training’ sub-theme I felt was unnecessary and created more questions for me that anything else. Something that the ending just took one step too far and moved it into the realm of the ridiculous. It seems no one in this woman's life cares enough about her to question (and then do something about) her mental state and repeated physical injuries...something I find hard to believe.

However, I must say that I love the dementia theme weaving it’s way throughout Paper Ghosts. It brought a realistic context in that it is a cruel condition that brings laughter, tears and immeasurable frustration to so many people.

I also loved how integral photography is to the story and is something that will say with me personally. As someone who views the world regularly through a lens, I found the passion and consideration given to photography in the book to be both beautiful and inspiring. It made we want to pick up my camera and take a closer look at the extraordinary moments in the ordinary world around me.

In summary I loved the idea and the writing style of Paper Ghosts, and the story kept me turning page after page to understand who killed Rachel and what exactly is Carl guilty of. Overall though, something about it just fell a little short for me.

Didn't manage to get to grips with this book. Found it very frustrating.

I absolutely loved this book. I read a lot of thrillers but Paper Ghosts is one of my favourites this year. The idea of taking an alleged serial killer on a trip to find the truth is brilliant and like nothing I've read before. I highly recommend this book.

I love love LOVED this book! Grace is searching for her sister's killer and thinks she's found him in Carl, an acquitted murderer suffering from dementia. She bluffs her way into taking him on a road trip, but what she uncovers with him isn't what you'd expect.

Moving, unexpected and multi-layered, the ending both ties up loose ends and leaves plenty of unanswered questions, just like in life. This is a thriller that's original and thought provoking, a cut above the rest. Highly recommended.

Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy with no obligation.

A road trip with a difference! My interest was captured by the originality of this novel: a woman drives off with her sister’s suspected killer, who has dementia, to try and jog his memory and find out the truth. The characters were credible and there were enough twists in the plot to keep me hooked. Well worth a read for anyone who enjoys murder, mystery or thriller type novels, but wants a new take on the genre.

Paper Ghosts is the perfect example of why we need half stars on Goodreads! Having found a good deal of the first half a slog, and at times being tempted to give up, somehow around the halfway mark I found myself completely gripped. As much a road trip novel and a paean to the state of Texas - some of the descriptions of place are stunning - as a thriller, this is definitely a slow-burner of a book and one that rewards close reading.

One thing, though, that infuriated me throughout was the narrator's habit of leaving her gun, wallet and car keys out of her reach and/or with Carl. I'm sorry, but if you're taking a road trip with a serial killer surely the first rule is don't lose sight of your money and weapon? She's had all this intensive training on how to survive and they never taught her "don't give a psychopath access to a gun"?

I really loved this book! Excellent story with brilliant main characters. I would recommend this book.

Verdict in a nutshell: not as good as Heaberlin' s earlier books but far more intelligent than many other psychological thrillers out there.

Heaberlin reinvents the road trip novel, skewing it darkly as this time the protagonists are a grieving young woman and the dementia-stricken old man who might have killed her sister. The characterisation is nicely ambiguous, and the writing wonderful as ever. But somehow this lacked both the sharpness and the humour of the previous books. The final revelation, especially, is extreme left-field, unsatisfyingly so.

Heaberlin is my go-to for acute, clever, commercial fiction: this one didn't quite pull it all together - 3.5 stars.

I was so excited to get this book and wasn't disappointed in the least. The story is so different and engaging. You never know what's going to happen and Carl can be so creepy one moment then almost kind the next. I really didn't see the final twists coming which always makes it satisfying. 5/5