Title: The Dead Romantics
Author: Ashley Poston
Publication: June 28, 2022
Publisher: Berkley
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Women’s Fiction
Pages: 368
SYNOPSIS: (From Goodreads)
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.
REVIEW:
I saw this book on BookTok and immediately added it to my wish list and promptly watched the price. Well fast forward and I had some credits saved up from picking a later ship date on a few of my packages and I bought it. I really wanted to read it soon but had a few other books that I had to read first. Rest assured I was super excited to read it.
Florence has been a ghostwriter for a very popular romance author. She has hit somewhat of a wall with her writing…her boyfriend dumped her after using her for all of her stories she told him from when she was a kid. What most people don’t know is she can see ghosts and they can see her. She helps them move on into the afterlife. Don’t worry this skill comes into play the entire book. Enter her new “boss” Benji who refuses to give her a deadline for her ghostwriting deadline. She makes an embarrassment of herself when she met with him. Later she gets the call that her father has died unexpectedly. I loved this book from the moment I started it. It was the perfect romance. It was warm hearted and light but had a good message woven through its pages. I will say that I did guess the main storyline about halfway through the book but honestly it didn’t change my love for the book at all.
This book was really cute. I loved the whole book theme that was in it. I loved the twist with Benji and the ghostwriter information. That was one twist that I honestly didn’t see coming. I kind of pegged the major twist but that other one maybe my jaw dropped and I gasped. I will say that the family did slightly annoy me but I think that is the whole point. Doesn’t everyones family annoy them. I think it was mainly Alice for being weird but once they cleared the air with each other it made it better. I loved the funeral that the father planned for himself. It honestly cracked me up. I think it was the balloons and streamers that did it for me. This book was clean enough in the romance part that I would feel comfortable sharing it with my Mom. So if you are worried about smut levels this one is pretty tame. Maybe about three words of sexy talk and that is pretty minimal. I will be keeping my eyes out for more books by this author because I have fallen in love with her writing style. Honestly, I would even be game for a Florence/Benji follow-up if I am being honest.
