Book Review: The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston

Rating: ★★★★☆
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 368 pages
Author: Ashley Poston
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: June 28th, 2022
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

A disillusioned millennial ghostwriter who, quite literally, has some ghosts of her own, has to find her way back home in this sparkling adult debut from national bestselling author Ashley Poston.

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.

GREW ON ME.

I spent the first 30-40% of this book wondering if I had made a mistake in picking it up. Not that it was bad, just thinking it might not be for me? It was a tad slow and I wasn’t sure when the romance was going to come into play.

BUT. I ate some of my words because past that point I fell in love with so much of this book. There were beautiful conversations surrounding loss, grief, and life. My heartstrings were pulled continually as these characters wrapped themselves around my heart. The power that words have over us is incredible and many of these statements weaved there way into me.

The romance was so sweet!!! The paranormal ghost aspects played out exactly as I hoped (blessed be or I might have thrown my book at anyone who told me I should read it). I thought Florence and Ben clicked. The chemistry was undeniable and the slow burn of watching them get to know each other was precious.

Lots to love about this one. It made good on the hype surrounding it and I look forward to future books by this author.

Overall audience notes:

• Contemporary Paranormal Romance
• Language: some strong
• Romance: brief open door
• Violence: low
• Trigger/Content Warnings: loss of a parent, grief depiction, bullying (mentioned)

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