The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston // Book Review

I picked this book on a whim. One of my reader friends loved it. It’s a Good Morning America Book Club pick. And someone asked me to read it. So I thought why not? Well, it definitely exceeded my expectations and even brought a tear to my eye. If a book can make me cry, then it’s a pretty good book in my opinion.

Here’s more about The Dead Romantics

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.

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My thoughts

This was such a complex story centered on one character, Florence, and her very unique life. She’s a ghostwriter that can see and speak to ghosts. Her father has recently passed, so she’s heading back to the hometown that’s bullied her to leave. She’s also finding out that her new very good looking editor, Ben, has recently passed and his ghost is showing up as she mourns her father, understands why she can’t write romance anymore, and figures out how to come to terms with her past. There’s a lot going on for Florence.

And the great part is that Ashley Poston expertly interweaves all the parts of this book together. It’s like a symphonic orchestra of themes and conflict that all somehow make the most beautiful music. It also helps that Ashley Poston’s writing is lyrical and beautiful sharing wisdom about life, death, and love throughout the story.

I found myself tearing up at so many different parts of this book. I cried during the funeral for her father. I cried during the end. I cried when the family was dancing around the funeral home and reminiscing about their lives in that place. And they were all tears of joy. It takes a lot for an author to make me cry, but it truly touched me to see how beautifully you can imagine death despite it being such a heavy subject.

Ashley Poston also doesn’t shy away from the conversation of death. In fact, she leans into it really hard but in a way that makes you happy. Yes, you’ll be happy about death by the end of this book! It did trigger my anxiety on the entire subject, but it also comforted me.

I know that the romance folks won’t like this one as much because it’s not too centered on the romance, but I fell in love with Florence and Ben. Yes, Ben is a ghost and yes they can never be together until Florence probably dies, but I had so many Casper vibes between the two of them and it made me wish so hard that Ben was real. While they may not have been able to touch each other or be intimate the way a couple would be in a romance, I think Ashley Poston really nailed the emotional and supportive components of a relationship; the parts that truly make a partnership between two people rather than just the sex. It was kind of beautiful.

I think the only thing I didn’t like is that the language got repetitive. There were some things that Ashley Poston tended to repeat over and over again, which made for a little dislike, but not enough to hate the overall story.

But in the end, I absolutely adored it. I’m so glad my friend loved it and influenced me to read it. I’m so glad someone brought it up and asked for my opinion. I’m so glad that I got a “skip the line” on my Libby app because this truly brought me comfort and joy in a time that feels really dark.