This romantic light fiction story includes sibling conflicts, loss, betrayal, a love that seems impossible...and a ghostwriter who's literally haunted by ghosts.
In Ashley Poston's The Dead Romantics, Florence Day is a ghostwriter for a famous reclusive romance writer. But she's gone through a breakup because of her partner's betrayal, and she's having a hard time getting her mojo back to write about flowery love and happy endings. She's starting to think that her handsome new editor might just be the inspiration she needs.
Then Florence's beloved father dies, and she returns to her hometown for the first time in many years. In town, she'll always be known as The Girl Who Solved a Murder Mystery by Talking to Ghosts, with all the fascination and suspicion one might expect.
Oh, and Florence's family runs the local mortuary business. And Florence really can communicate with ghosts. Oh, and then her cute editor shows up in town...as a ghost.
I began to realize that love wasn't dead, but it wasn't forever, either. It was something in between...
I loved the playful tone, the ghost angle within this light fiction, romantic story, and the focus on writing and books.
I found myself distracted by minor issues such as slight repetition, some grammar (I/me, anyone?) and sayings that were incorrect but didn't seem to be so on purpose, and the convenient dismissal of inconvenient elements (the missed deadline driving the story's initial tension that was all but forgotten for a time).
I didn't feel wholly satisfied with the evolution of the sibling relationships, closure with Dad, or the resolution of childhood trauma--aspects I thought were set up in order to serve greater purposes. Yet the ending was fun, with several wrap-up moments that made me smile.
Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book?
Ashley Poston is also the author of Geekerella and the Once Upon a Con series, the Heart of Iron Series, and the Radio Hearts series.
If you like light fiction, you might like the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Great Light Fiction Stories and Six More Great Light Fiction Stories.
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