The Dead Romantics

1

The Ghostwriter

Every good story has a few secrets.

At least, that's what I've been told. Sometimes they're secrets about love, secrets about family, secrets about murder-some so inconsequential they barely feel like secrets at all, but monumental to the person keeping them. Every person has a secret. Every secret has a story.

And in my head, every story has a happy ending.

If I were the heroine in a story, I would tell you that I had three secrets.

One, I hadn't washed my hair in four days.

Two, my family owned a funeral home.

And three, I was the ghostwriter of mega-bestselling, critically acclaimed romance novelist Ann Nichols.

And I was sorely late for a meeting.

"Hold the door!" I shouted, bypassing the security personnel at the front desk, and sprinting toward the elevators.

"Miss!" the befuddled security guard shouted after me. "You have to check in! You can't just-"

"Florence Day! Falcon House Publishers! Call up to Erin and she'll approve me!" I tossed over my shoulder, and slid into one of the elevators, cactus in tow.

As the doors closed, a graying man in a sharp business suit eyed the plant in question.

"A gift to butter up my new editor," I told him, because I wasn't someone who just carried around small succulents wherever she went. "God knows it's not for me. I kill everything I touch, including three cactuses-cacti?-already."

The man coughed into his hand and angled himself away from me. The woman on the other side said, as if to console me, "That's lovely, dear."

Which meant that this was a terrible gift. I mean, I figured it was, but I had been stranded for too long on the platform waiting for the B train, having a small panic attack with my brother on the phone, when a little old lady with rollers in her hair tottered by selling cacti for like a dollar a pop and I bought things when I was nervous. Mainly books but-I guess now I bought houseplants, too.

The guy in the business

Ashley Poston

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

What fun the Emily Henry/Casey McQuiston reader (aka me) is going to gobble this book up. Smart, quick, and absolutely bubbling over with love for the genre of romance itself. Delicious.
Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow

"The Dead Romantics was an absolute and unexpected delight. Voicy and quirky and fun; the pages will probably sparkle (but with black glitter)."
Christina Lauren, New York Times bestselling author of The Unhoneymooners

"The Dead Romantics takes so many things I love quirky heroines, found families, cozy small towns, fanfics, GHOSTS (!!!) and gives them all a fresh, fun, thoroughly modern spin. This is truly a RomCom to die for!"
Rachel Hawkins, New York Times bestselling author of Reckless Girls
 
This book made me fall in