Title: The Dead Romantics
Author: Ashley Poston
Publisher: Berkley, June 28, 2022
Pages: 366
Genre: Contemporary Romance / Magical Realism
Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most prolific romance authors in the industry, and she has a problem—after a terrible breakup, she no longer believes in love. It’s as good as dead.
When her new editor, a too-handsome mountain of a man, won’t give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive, and she must return home for the first time in a decade to help her family bury her beloved father.
For ten years, she’s run from the town that never understood her, and even though she misses the sound of a warm Southern night and her eccentric, loving family and their funeral parlor, she can’t bring herself to stay. Even with her father gone, it feels like nothing in this town has changed. And she hates it.
Until she finds a ghost standing at the funeral parlor’s front door, just as broad and infuriatingly handsome as ever, and he’s just as confused about why he’s there as she is.
Romance is most certainly dead . . . but so is her new editor, and his unfinished business will have her second-guessing everything she’s ever known about love stories.
When her new editor, a too-handsome mountain of a man, won’t give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive, and she must return home for the first time in a decade to help her family bury her beloved father.
For ten years, she’s run from the town that never understood her, and even though she misses the sound of a warm Southern night and her eccentric, loving family and their funeral parlor, she can’t bring herself to stay. Even with her father gone, it feels like nothing in this town has changed. And she hates it.
Until she finds a ghost standing at the funeral parlor’s front door, just as broad and infuriatingly handsome as ever, and he’s just as confused about why he’s there as she is.
Romance is most certainly dead . . . but so is her new editor, and his unfinished business will have her second-guessing everything she’s ever known about love stories.
I made 41 highlights and left 33 notes in this ebook. I would go so far as to say this is probably one of my most annotated first read through of a book. Not all of my notes were very nice, as much as I enjoyed this book, at least half of my feelings for it were hate reading. It has such good reviews and I've seen so many people rave about it on bookstagram and booktok and such, so I just had to read it! It is very good. It is beautifully written, very quotable, and truly a lovely romance. HOWEVER. My curse of hating leading ladies strikes again. Because Florence Day is so utterly unlikable for most of this book.
That's not entirely true. She is not unlikable. But holy cow does she make INFURIATING decisions. It's incredible that we learned anything in this book because she is never around other characters enough to know anything of what's going on! She does get some very good character development, and I appreciate that very much. Because man I really was always 5 words from a DNF for the first half of this book.
I loved how this book dealt with grieving and death though. You saw it in small doses and large doses. How sometimes grief is just with you every step of your day, and other times you can completely forget about it until the wind changes and all of a sudden you remember. Sometimes you can't even think louder than the sadness, and sometimes it's just a whisper in the back of your mind while you move on with living. The idea that this extremely loving happy family deals in death is kind of a beautiful one. I liked this way this book honored the dead.
And of course, the romance is VERY swoony. Florence, despite the way she was described for the first few chapters, is a pretty dreamy chaos goblin once she gets her act in gear. And Benji Andor is a very dreamy hero. Even if he's intangible for much of the book. The biggest love story of this book is between me and the puns though! They were very good!
Ratings
Stars: 4/5
Spice: 1/5
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