The Dead Romantics

By: Ashley Poston

Narrated by: Eileen Stevens

Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

A New York Times Notable Book of 2022!

The New York Times Bestseller and Good Morning America Book Club Pick!

"I LOVED this book! ...Funny, breathtaking, hopeful, and dreamy.”—Ali Hazelwood, New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis

A disillusioned millennial ghostwriter who, quite literally, has some ghosts of her own, has to find her way back home in this sparkling adult debut from national bestselling author Ashley Poston.

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.

"One of the Summer's Hottest Reads"—Entertainment Weekly

©2022 Ashley Poston (P)2022 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"It’s ‘While You Were Sleeping’ meets ‘Six Feet Under,’ and I need to yell to everyone about how good it is…The result is an antidote for despair, a romance that is frank about the fact that life ends and time marches on but that nevertheless insists: We aren’t a gothic horror novel. We’re a love story. This is a book to make you laugh during the funeral scene and cry when the dance party begins."—The New York Times

“We could all use a good summer ghost story, and you can't get much better than Ashley Poston's adult fiction debut.”—Entertainment Weekly

“I LOVED this book. A beautiful, poignant story, full of beautiful, poignant characters. Florence is exactly the type of lovable, endearing, relatable lead I want to fall for, and her journey through learning how to love again had me squealing, sighing, laughing. The Dead Romantics is like a beautifully crafted puzzle: at the end all the pieces fall perfectly into place, and the picture that they form is at once touching, funny, breathtaking, hopeful, and dreamy.”—Ali Hazelwood, New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis

✫✫ 5 Stars ✫✫

I loved this book! It was one of those books that I think I listened to at the exact right time. I went in completely blind so I had no idea what this was about. I knew pretty early on how it was going to end and the ending made my heart so happy. I loved that this wasn't just your regular every day contemporary romance. I loved all of the book references and dead jokes. I will definitely be looking for more audiobooks by this author.

Narration was perfect. I have listened to her before and always enjoy her work.

The Book I Didn’t Know I Needed

This book is just so darn good. It is a little silly, a little sappy, a little sad, a lot of dark humor—all wrapped up in a beautifully written package with words penned with love. I had no idea how badly I needed this book. Smiles and tears and out loud laughs. It is absolutely lovely. A gift for the soul.

Seen it coming a mile away ..

The narrator, Eileen Stevens made this one better for me. it was a simple cute story. A bit of a twist, but come on... you didn't see it coming? No harm no foul. It's is a cute, weird, fun little story of complete fiction...I can handle that once in a while.

Chock full of cliches and predictable characters

I wouldn't have finished this except that it's our book club selection. Several of the members raved that they really enjoyed the book but I strongly disliked it. The characters are predictable personas, including the main character who is insufferably insecure and seemingly incapable of trusting any thought or feeling she has. I wanted to slap her or shake her and tell her to quit whining and grow up.The setting is cheesey, the family strife is lame, even the grief is surface level. It was just not my cup of tea.

A great blend of romance and the supernatural

I loved this book though I’m not usually a romance reader. Most don’t really reflect what a real, true, love is like. But I am someone that does know what true lasting love is, having 50 amazing years with a man who is so like Ben in this book. The author so eloquently writes into the story the caring, humor and love upon which a great romance can be built.

Cute story

Overall a cute story. It took me most of the book to get over the narrator’s voices for the characters, though. Male voices came across really odd. And some of the phrases were said with odd emphasis. But, the story was cute and entertaining and the narration as a whole was quite good.

Such a sweet story

This book was not at all something I’d normally read, nor was it was I expected it to be based on the description. It was such a sweet story of love in many forms. I cried… a lot, but I couldn’t put it down.

Romance isn't dead.

Loved this sweet and introspective ghost romance. this was my first Ashley Posten and it won't be my last! The narration was stellar.

Not For Me

I finished it; not sure how I ended up buying it--I think I thought it was the Tara Conklin book that I had bought earlier with a similar name. I give it one star (rather than none) only because it could have been a fun premise and was an interesting setting: a funeral home. It was straight up romance with a twist--the protagonist sees ghosts and then falls for one. The characters are so cookie cutter: there's the scrappy best friend, the jilted so now lacking in self-confidence heroine, the lovely parents, the six-pack abs love interest, the supportive brother, the person who bullied our hero in high school and finally, the angry sister. Interestingly in what felt like an obvious bow to cultural pressure since the characters were never much developed, the inn-owner who was referred to as "they" and three homosexual characters--sister, best friend and brother. I am all for including LGBTQ characters in stories so that they can seem less scary to those who hate but this felt a little over the top and almost pandering. The ending was predictable, the sex was open door and the writing ludicrous: his "ochre" eyes, the "crystalline skies" and what is with everybody "pinching their nose". There were literary references but god forbid, they were of Nora Roberts. Yuk! I rolled my eyes continuously and only didn't stop listening because I'm tired of paying for, then abandoning, Audible books. It is, however, ten plus hours of my life I'll never get back. I was beyond thrilled when it was over.

BORING

I just kept hoping that something interesting would happen. And the narrator’s male voice was disturbing.