I’m back on the romance train, this time with Ashley Poston’s The Dead Romantics. It is as much a tale of confronting the past as it is the present, and through in some emotional turmoil left, right, and centre, and you have this witty, heartfelt, joy of a read. Sometimes the best romances are wrapped up in self discovery and the healing old wounds, and The Dead Romantics does not disappoint on either front.

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 Ben, 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 parlour, 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 parlour’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.

Florence is the older sister character to a tee, but also there are elements to her character that resonate with me, such as oldest daughter syndrome and the pathless journey of writing that can be so overwhelming and confusing it make the task all the more difficult to complete. She is a likeable main character working through a block that is truly freezing her in place – a broken heart. Carver and Alice are fantastic characters, bringing both light and darkness to Florence’s compounding dilemmas. Meanwhile Ben is an awesome character who brings no only a different perspective to things, but also balance Florence out well, making him an ideal love interest.

The just from the city life of New York to a quiet small town int he country is not new to me, and I actually quite liked it when I read Emily Henry’s Book Lovers. I like it again here in The Dead Romantics because of the emotional ties and the emotional turmoil Florence is going through. The quietness of the town makes the focus go to the internal conflicts and external tensions between the Days, yet its familiarity and the friend folk are a constant reminder of the pressing matter of her being there – her late father. Its perfect for the personal journey she goes on, not to mention the setting for this budding relationship between her and Ben.

The themes of the novel make it not only an interesting read, but an emotional one full of happy and sad moments. Not only is there loss and grief, but there is also family, love, celebrating life, forgiveness, and letting go of the past. It is a book that touches upon a number of things while navigating the space of life after death – not just for the family left behind, but the ghosts that linger too.

I had such a fun time reading The Dead Romantics. While it may not be the most romantic book, the most relatable, or the one that sticks out the most with its content, it is still a fabulous read. I highly recommend romance readers pick this up and add it to their TBR. It is light yet addresses heavy subjects, witty yet thought-provoking, and it is a lovely way to spend an afternoon.