The Dead Romantics - 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. (link)

Review: 4/5

After reading Seven Year Slip (also by Ashley Poston) I decided to dive more into Ashley Poston’s books. I anticipated not liking this book as much as I did SYS, but I didn’t anticipate the difference in writing and maturity.

One of the main reasons I loved SYS so much is because it didn't have internet references, and that made it feel timeless. This book was very different, and felt more corny and “cheaply” made just from the use of some little quotes. “Doggo” “zoom zoom juice” and “chaos gremlin” are three different quotes that I feel need no explanation as to why I was frustrated. I’m impressed with the resilience I had to not DNF at this point. There were more quotes that felt like intense pulls of millennial relatability and humor, which was a hard pill for me to swallow as much as I liked the theme and idea of this book.

As I’ve said before, I love how Ashley writes grief. It’s always realistic and obviously pulls from loss she has experienced. I cried three times while reading. So, for that to be the theme of this book, I thought it was really well done.

Now, let’s talk about the paranormal factor of this story; Florence (the main character) has the uncanny ability to see ghosts, and to help them move on. After her father passes, Florence decides to go back to her small hometown to help her family get the affairs sorted in time for the funeral. Soon after coming home, her sexy, young, new editor shows up to her family’s door- and he’s a ghost!

Spoiler alert: he was in a coma for the entirety of it… OF COURSE I CALLED IT BEFORE IT WAS REVEALED! At 41%, I highlighted the quote “Is it normal to hear things - voices - barely? Like they’re just out of earshot?” with the note “I CALLED COMA TWO CHAPTERS AGO”. Look at me and my critical thinking skills! Are you impressed? She’s falling in love with this guy as he’s a ghost, and so you’re tricked into thinking they can’t be together. I thought it was cute the way it was done!

I especially liked at the end, that you didn’t know if they both knew the truth; they cared so much about each other that they were willing to not bring it up for fear of scaring the other. But of course there was a happy ending where they were honest (durrr).

The only thing I didn’t love about this book (besides being chronically online) was the whole “solved a murder at 13 because I could see ghosts thing” I felt for such a big plotline, it was very underdeveloped. Florence felt she could never go back home because of the way she was ashamed and ousted after solving the murder of a 13 year old… Then it magically figures itself out. Right? The self-reflection of this side-plot was very shallow, which made it hard for me to understand and fit it into the character growth. I know that was part of her arc, but it just didn’t seem relevant or developed enough to fit into the story.

I loved the idea of her family owning a mortuary, she’s able to see ghosts, and she has a strained relationship with her sister. Bonus for these ideas being really well executed. I really liked this book, I think it was very different from a lot of paranormal, fantastical, romance books I’ve read. I think Poston did a great job fitting grief and paranormal activity into an easily digestible romantic comedy. I thought it was well-thought out and had interesting twists (even if they were predictable).

Spotify: LINK