The Dead Romantics by 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 sounds of a warm Southern night and her eccentric, loving family and their funeral parlor, she can’t bring herself to stay. Her father’s gone, yet everything else feels the same. 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.
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This book felt personal, and beautiful, and everything I was looking for all rolled into one. I don’t want to jump the gun but thus far, this is my favourite read of 2022. Florence’s journey through grief and love was exactly what I needed at exactly the right time. I thought I was getting a light/fluffy romcom that had some connections to Reylo fanfics. I was so wrong. Yes, this is a light book with many happy moments. But it was also heavy. It dealt with heavy themes of death and grief but also the beauty of life and love and I think those things went so well hand-in-hand in this book that I was sobbing and laughing in equal measures. It was a little bit Just Like Heaven mixed with a little Addams Family and a small dash of Ghost. It was the perfect fall transition read going through a romance with ghostly hauntings included. When I was done this book I felt like I’d never recover and have since been in a massive book hangover. So, it’s definitely a five star read.
The setting for this book was immaculate. I loved the southern gothic vibes. But most of all, I loved how Addams Family it was without the creepy factor. The Day Funeral Parlor wasn’t a creepy old victorian from Halloween movies, nor was it a cold sterile funeral home like in The Haunting of Hill House, it felt warm and inviting. It felt, while reading, like home. The place where we say goodbye to loved ones SHOULDN’T feel sad and lonely or creepy and sterile. It should bring us comfort and that’s exactly what this fictional town and The Day Funeral Parlor did. It brought comfort to me, the reader, and to the fictional characters that visited it. It was the perfect transition book to fall. It gave Stars Hallow meets Mystic Falls vibes and I loved it.
Florence and Ben may just be two of my favourite romance characters after this. Ben, right from the start, was kind and thoughtful. I went into this expecting a frustrating enemies to lovers (which, admittedly, I love) but I was very wrong and I couldn’t have been happier. It just fit so well with who Ben becomes in the book that he was never cruel or cocky like a lot of romance leads start off as. He had genuine respect for Florence and her secrecy. Seeing him in ghost form was almost too heartbreaking after being introduced to him at the start. Florence was a mess at the start of the book which frustrated me a lot but it made for spectacular character development. She had trust issues, guy issues, childhood bullies, and a huge lack of self confidence. She didn’t like the things about her that made her special or unique and I loved the slow self realization that she had. Sure, this was a love story between two people, but it was also a love story for herself. Finding out who she is and learning to love that person. I think that can resonate with most of us, especially those of us who got a little lost in our 20’s.
The way that this book dealt with grief and death is the entire reason I fell in love with it. It’s such a heavy topic and finding it in a romance was the last thing I expected but it was handled so gently and so beautifully. Like most people, I have not had a good time dealing with grief in my life. It never gets easier and sometimes we don’t always deal with it in the best ways but this book made me realize that there is no “right” way to deal with it. It hits everyone differently and as long as you carry on, you’re doing ok. This book not only let me grieve for these characters but it related too well to those very real feelings I’ve had in real life. I think it was a very transformative book that changed my viewpoint on death and goodbyes and it’s something everyone should read in their early adulthood. To quote Xavier Day, “Love is a celebration of life and death.”
Obviously I absolutely loved this book and I will recommend it to everyone I speak to until the end of time. So go read it. It has more than earned that 5 star rating. I can’t wait to reread and explore anything else this author creates. I have no qualms in being overly-dramatic when I say it was Life Changing.