The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston

The Dead Romantics is one of Ashley Poston's first contemporary romances that is not also young adult. It was released in 2022 and became a New York Times Bestseller as well as one of their Notable Books of 2022, and was chosen as a Good Morning America Book Club Pick. It is also an Amazon Editors' Pick for the Best Romance books. It deals with child death and murder (in the past and only referenced), bullying, infidelity, death of a parent, grief, and a car accident.

Florence Day has been ghostwriting for one of romance's most prolific and well loved authors for the last several years and it's been going great. That is, until her boyfriend steals her story, breaks her heart, and kicks her out of his house during a rain storm. Now Florence Day knows that romance is dead and she has a manuscript that she cannot complete. She also has a brand new editor who tells her - in no uncertain terms - that the manuscript has already taken far longer than it should to finish and she will receive no more extensions. If she can't pony up, they'll need to get legal involved. But that thought gets pushed to the back of her mind when she finds out that her father has died unexpectedly and she has to go home to her small town for his funeral. The same town that ridiculed her and drove her away after she solved a murder... with the help of a ghost. That may seem like enough to pack into one story but we aren't done yet. Florence is standing at the door of her family's funeral home when she sees another ghost. This one of her new editor. And he doesn't seem to know that he's dead.

Okay, if there is ever a story that would make me start reading the back covers of books again, it would be this one. I had no idea that we were going to be seeing dead people. But it's not the reason I didn't love this book. The supernatural element took me by surprise but it didn't bother me. But, even though I really wanted to love this book, I just didn't. The plot was fun and it seems like it would be right up my alley, but I found the book to be repetitive and redundant. It seemed like the main character Florence had weaknesses crop up that hadn't been anywhere earlier in the novel, though everyone in her life now says that it is a key characteristic of her personality. And we cannot stop talking about it over and over again while no progress is made until the end, when all of a sudden, lightbulbs go off and Florence has absolutely no trouble doing the one thing that she has struggled with her entire life. I felt like the center of the book was slow and uninteresting. The secondary characters, and I would mostly include the love interest Benji in this group, were largely one dimensional. Florence keeps talking about these epic love stories that her family is a part of, love stories that she will not be having of her own, but nowhere did I actually hear about one of those love stories. But this book was not all bad. The plot was fun and I did enjoy the ending, it wrapped up pretty nicely. I also really like when Lee gets punched. But I wanted more, and I really hate the name Benji (although he does go by Ben most of the time).

I'm giving The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston 3.5 stars out of 5 with a spice rating of .5. I wanted to like it but it was just okay. I think maybe Ashley Poston's writing style is just not for me.

Pairs well with a Robert Frost Cocktail and learning how to play Spades.

For more from the author, check out https://www.ashposton.com/

My favorite quote:

"I give my hear to everyone I meet, and I put it in everything I do, and sometimes it hurts. Often it hurts, actually."