“The Dead Romantics” brings fresh perspective to mourning

I hate ghost stories in novels. I love a good horror movie as much as the next person, but when it comes to reading novels, I expect the pages to be ghost-free. So, you can imagine my surprise when I opened to the first page of “The Dead Romantics” only to discover that the protagonist can talk to ghosts and does so on a rather frequent basis.

You may be wondering, “Marissa, how did you manage to pick up a book without knowing anything about what it was about?” Well, I happened to like the color of the cover and picked it up from the BookTok section of Barnes and Noble without even a glance at the back cover. Technically, the title should have been a dead giveaway, but I remained blissfully ignorant until I picked the novel up off my shelf and sat down to read it. And yet, “The Dead Romantics” somehow managed to become my favorite novel of 2022, despite the inclusion of ghosts. In fact, once I started reading, I couldn’t put it down.

Author Ashley Poston does an impeccable job crafting a melodramatic ghost story that somehow combines elements of grief, romance and the supernatural into 366 pages—three things I would never imagine would work well when incorporated into one plot. After a sudden death in the family, ghostwriter Florence Day is forced to leave New York City and return to her hometown for the first time in 10 years. Florence is forced to grapple with the ghosts of her past while preparing the family’s funeral home for its most important funeral to date—her father’s. When an unexpected visitor shows up on the funeral home’s steps, Florence is forced to decide whether to ignore her destiny or move forward in pursuit of what is right, regardless of others’ opinions about her gift.

When I read a novel, it is most important that I feel connected to the main character, and that is exactly how I felt about Florence. She was relatable and quirky and provided the perfect contrast to the other members of her family. There is a lot to love about this novel, though I particularly enjoy its portrayal of different types of grief. Poston crafted each of her characters to experience grief differently, something I find extremely important in literature. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to losing someone close to you, and Poston was careful to avoid stereotyping what grief should look like. Instead, she encourages an open dialogue among the characters in the novel which ultimately transcends the pages of the book and into the real world.

Not to mention, I am a sucker for a good romance. I had never encountered anything like the relationship between Florence and Ben, and I have read a lot of romance novels. The one complaint with the novel is that I kept asking for more romantic development. If romance novels aren’t your thing, this might be your book, as it reads more like traditional fiction with the essence of romance than the other novels I have reviewed thus far.

Out of all the novels I’ve read in 2022, this one is by far my favorite. If you’ve ignored my book reviews up until this point, I forgive you, assuming you pick up a copy of “The Dead Romantics.” It is the kind of book that will leave you wishing you could reread it again for the first time. I give it 5 out of 5 stars.