If you liked reading The Mediator series by Meg Cabot as a teen – looking at teenage me rn – then you will love The Dead Romantics. This romance debut has tension, family exploration, and more. Keep reading this book review for my full thoughts.
Summary
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
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
TW: parental death, grief
I have been a big fan of Poston’s YA releases, so I knew I couldn’t wait for this adult romance debut. And I was not wrong. The premise, a millennial ghostwriter who is disillusion with love, who meets a her new romance editor who believes in love, but shows up dead. Like talk about a sizzling and unique concept. Within the first few chapters I was entirely captivated. But I think where The Dead Romantics truly shines are the characters. The ways in which Florence is so deeply hurt and betrayed.
And how it takes her time and a little push to realize that not all love has to end that way. That she doesn’t have to take on the world’s problems on her own. That theme – the necessity of support – resonated with me. As she’s struggling to process her grief and not sure how to tell her friends and family, Florence has to realize she’s not alone. That we should lean on the ones we love. Combined with the internal narration, The Dead Romantics is a win on my end!
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The family drama that Florence has to explore in The Dead Romantics is complex. The ways we live in our heads for too long and all the feuds and unspoken silence we become meshed in. I would have loved more exploration, particularly at the end, for the family aspect, but overall The Dead Romantics is a solid adult romance debut. With swoony tension, it’s focused on Florence and her grief as well as her belief in love. And talk about putting the ghost in ghost writer! Find The Dead Romantics on Goodreads, Amazon, Indiebound, Bookshop.org & The Book Depository.
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