HQ The Dead Romantics, Romance, Paperback, Ashley Poston
3866 ratings
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Price: £8.99
Brand: HQ
Description: | ??A Novel Love Story, the new magical rom-com from Ashley Poston is available to pre-order now! | ??*** 'I LOVED this book! Funny, hopeful and dreamy' ALI HAZELWOOD 'An absolute delight' CHRISTINA LAUREN ***. HQ The Dead Romantics, Romance, Paperback, Ashley Poston - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: Harper Collins
Product ID: 9780008566562
Delivery cost: Spend £20 and get free shipping
Dimensions: 129x198mm
Keywords: romantic,romance,rom-com,death,grief,heartbreak,ghosts,ghost story,family,parents,siblings,brother,sister,love,love story,falling in love,relationships,friendship,enemies to lovers,friends to lovers,non-binary,queer,gay,Tik Tok,tiktok,Book Tok,booktok,dating,fake relationship,love at first sight,tiktokker,tiktoker,booktokker,booktoker,summer,reads,romance,sad,sweet,cute,funny,enemies to lovers,magical realism,witchy,small town,books about books,book boyfriend,2024
ISBN: 9780008566562
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Author: kirstyes
Rating: 5
Review: Well. What can I say. Ashley Poston has done it again - I’m not sure I was ready for a book with a squatty potty reference ???? - but I’m here for it (it’s good for the digestion!). I am a huge fan of Ashley’s YA Geekerella series which uses fandom as a backdrop to her romances. Now with this foray into adult fiction we have publishing as our backdrop but with some additional supernatural goings on. This makes this a perfect spooky season read. This is the second book recently I’ve read where I can reference Ghost Whisperer as a comparison (see my review of middle grade book The Whisperling) and I’m not at all mad about that - what with it being one of my favourite shows. Florence Day has grown up around death - literally. Her family run Days Gone Funeral Home (excellent name) and both her father and her see dead people walking around like regular people! Hounded out of her small town because of this gift, Florence headed to the big smoke and tried to turn her love of writing smutty X-Files fan fic into a career in romance fiction. After her first novel doesn’t take off in quite the way she’d hoped she ends up ghostwriting (lol) for a hugely successful romance writer. We meet her as the last book on that contract is due - but the thing is she has writer’s block. How can you write romance when you’ve had your heart smashed? Florence’s ex is a despicable piece of work who deserves much worse than he gets in my opinion. Seriously he makes my blood boil. Pulled back to her home after a family tragedy she finds a ghost on the doorstep of her family home but this ghost is very out of place and unwelcome. After all he didn’t give her an extension on her novel! Rude. It’s her very hot editor Benji Andor who on first meeting him the words “climb him” were screamed by her inner voice - although sadly that turns out not to be possible when you can’t touch a ghost. But is it possible for the spirit of romance to be reignited? No spoilers here but I was satisfied with the journey Florence went on. I will say that this was perhaps a slightly slower start than we’ve grown used to but the payoff makes it worth it and Ashley’s writing is easy to read and comforting. This mixes the best echoes of Christmas Hallmark movies (but with Halloween vibes in April - and not Christmas), Sweet Home Alabama and A million funerals and a wedding! I loved this exploration of complex family relationships, small town gossip and an incorporeal romance. Poston brings her humour and pop culture references naturally across into the adult sphere where she can be a little more spicy (although only in small doses - we don’t actually get any of the X-Files smut on the page! More’s the pity). The small town of Mairmont with its doggie Mayor (this needs to become a thing - the world would be so much kinder) becomes a character itself and I fell in love with it too. I loved the incidental non binary and queer characters because there was no negative focus on this - they just were and this is what the world should be. If the Reader Discussion questions are anything to go by keep your fingers crossed for a sequel and more Mairmont. I’d equally be happy with other books following some of our side characters. Although grief is a big theme in this story the book itself is hopeful and not macabre and focuses very much on death as part of life. In the author’s note Ashley Poston talks about her fear of death which I very much share - so to write such a book must have been a therapy session as much as it was reading it. A huge thank you to Ashley for this piece of magic and to HQ Stories for the gifted copy for the purposes of an honest review. Do check out what everyone else on the tour thought.
Author: Jellichor
Rating: 3
Review: Florence Day lives in New York and is a ghost writer for a widely loved romance author - she can also talk to ghosts, a gift she inherited from her Dad. (Who just so happens to run a family Funeral Parlour.) The problem is Florence no longer believes in love after The Break Up a year ago, so she has nothing to hand over to her brand new Editor, Benji Andor, for her upcoming deadline. Not long after their first meeting where Benji refuses Florence's request for an extension on the book deadline, Florence finds herself having to suddenly leave New York and return to her family and home town - somewhere she hasn't been in over 10 years - and unexpectantly comes face to face with the ghost of... yup. Benji. All '6 foot sexy' of him. I most definitely was rolling my eyes while chuckling out loud at that line! This book was a very easy and cute read with a scattering of literary and film references which - for a bookish person - I enjoyed. Particularly the subtle IYKYK nods to Mulan, Jumanji and Howl's Moving Castle. The romance plot was cute, albeit predictable and cheesy - I find most books like this are - and I found their background stories a tad surface level. I would have liked to have gotten into the nitty gritty a bit more - something I felt for most of the characters and sub plots actually. There was a lot of potential to go deeper throughout the storyline - think the author missed a few tricks there - but it never really happened so I just accepted about a third of the way through that I was just going to sit and enjoy the journey and not try and hope the book is something that it is not. The small town setting is a familiar one but I enjoyed the focus around the family run Funeral home which was fitting for this time of year - it was interesting for there to be only wholesomeness and joy centred around a building whose business is death. There was some talk about Florence's and her Father's ability to see and talk to ghosts but I feel that could have been explored more. There were several touching moments focussing on the concept of them trying to fulfil the last requests of these lingering spirits, particularly when it connected directly with her father, but it didn't turn into anything more than a vague suggestion here and an unconfirmed hint there. I felt the same about a few other parts of the plot which I won't specify (DM for deets) as I prefer to do spoiler free reviews - but lets just say the ghosts weren't the only ones with unfinished business!! Overall a sad, but pleasant and cosy ghost romance read!! I read this in 2 days, the second half in one night, and teared up in a few places. It was perfect for the thriller free stint I'm currently on after reading a few too many in a row, and now I'll leave you with a couple of my highlighted bookish quotes - “Buying books always made me feel better, even if I never read them.” “I ran my thumb over the pages of one of the books in my lap, feeling them buzz softly.”
