The Dead Romantics
Is romance dead? asks YA author Ashley Poston’s début adult contemporary/paranormal romance. That’s a complicated question, but if The Dead Romantics isn’t quite a nail in the coffin, it’s certainly no help to the genre or the concept of romance as a whole.
Florence Day has sworn off love, which currently threatens her financial life more than her personal one. As the ghostwriter for Ann Nichols, a famous romance author (and just about the only fictional one in a novel that name-checks Julia Quinn, Sally Thorne, Nora Roberts & Casey McQuiston), she has enjoyed more success than she ever did as the author of one novel that sunk like a stone a few years back. She also can see and converse with ghosts. Now, post break-up from a guy who wrote a book about her paranormal abilities (which she revealed to him in the form of a story of hers, not as actual fact) and her funeral-home-owning family, she’s behind on her deadline and shows up to meet her new editor, Benji Andor, but finds no reprieve in his brown eyes, which Florence describes as “like melty Hershey’s Kisses on like the worst day of your period.” All of these problems are soon overshadowed by the death of her beloved, indulgent father, and Florence heads home to South Carolina, only to discover that she’s haunted again: by Benji, who got hit by a car shortly after she left.
Reading a romance with a miserable protagonist is like getting marooned on a beautiful island with a defeatist companion. Florence is supposedly a writer whose “words . . . could wake the dead” (per her father – and we know how trustworthy parental opinion is in creative matters), and, according to Benji, her “imagination has been praised as ‘illuminating’ and ‘masterful’.” The story, which is told entirely in Florence’s first-person PoV, gives no evidence that any of those things are true. The lavish praise heaped upon her only draws attention to the writing’s abundant averageness and the fact that the story is a romance which is familiar in a casually dull rather than a comforting way. Florence is a character who cannot find joy in a life that features a supportive family, a loving best friend, and a job that a million people dream of in vain. She – with the endorsement of others – continually blames everyone from her ex-boyfriend to her publisher for her failures in life, and is consistently portrayed as a victim of her own good-hearted selflessness. A culminating event in her character arc is committing physical assault: she punches her ex in the face and reflects only that “It felt good, and he deserved it”.
Benji is an apparition before he’s even dead, not so much The One in Florence’s life as One of Many, jostling for primacy with her father and ex-boyfriend. He appears almost nowhere in the first quarter of the story except for one wildly unearned kiss. The paranormal twist to the narrative takes far too long to come, and when it does, is like a good line in a play that is trampled in the delivery. The story barely grazes the warm heat rating, and never explores the potential of how partners might enjoy sexual/sensual expression with each other without the tool of physical touch.
If romance is dead, The Dead Romantics won’t raise it, and might actually send it spinning in its grave.
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Part-time cowgirl, part-time city girl. Always working on converting all my friends into romance readers ("Charlotte, that was the raunchiest thing I have ever read!").
Book Details
Reviewer: | Charlotte Elliott |
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Review Date: | August 7, 2022 |
Publication Date: | 08/2022 |
Grade: | D- |
Sensuality | Warm |
Book Type: | Contemporary Romance |
Review Tags: | paranormal |
I just finished the book, without having read Charlotte’s review last summer. It clearly did not land for her.
I’m not generally a big fan of CR without some other spin (romantic suspense, paranormal elements, etc.) but I thought this worked fairly well given that I knew going in that Florence would be going home for a funeral, in a small town she had run from, from the very beginning. Yes, the heroine is pretty much a hot mess (but I find many are in CRs) and the heat level is very low (a refreshing change, actually, given how present the ex still is in Florence’s head). I enjoyed the insider jokes about romance writing/publishing and totally missed the fanfic references noted by other commenters below because I’m just not into that world. I liked the generally positive spin her family had about death and funerals given that it was their business (I have friends who were in the mortuary business, and I found those details and the characters sense of humor about it authentic). I thought Florence managed to get herself together a bit by the end; and enjoyed the book’s plot twist at the very end.
I’m another reader who has to disagree with this review. Really enjoyed all the characters and the sweet story.
Finished this last night and must respectfully disagree with the reviewer. Did I think it was the greatest romance I’ve ever read? Definitely not. But did I think it was so bad it came thisclose to an F? Also no.
I’m old enough that, even though I’ve seen Star Wars, I associate the name Benjy with a dog, not fanfic. It also seems a little young for a man in his 30s. Immediate family and friends you’ve had since elementary school may call you by juvenile nicknames, but it’s not a name one would be known by in the office.
I did get annoyed with Florence’s insistence that she do everything herself, especially since she couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t take on all responsibility and, in the end, she didn’t. Her family and her friends, and even one of her HS enemies, were there to help. Her refusal to go home for 10 years was also annoying. I found Ben much more appealing, although his love for romance novels and his assumption of all the guilt for the failure of his prior engagement seemed excessive. All in all I would grade this a C.
So the other book I recently checked out of the library was Lily Menon’s The Sizzle Paradox, which turned out to be oddly similar to the Poston book. Both are about women who supposedly are experts in Romance, one as an author and one as a researcher, but both feel like hypocrites and failures since they can’t maintain a romantic relationship of their own. Maybe because I just finished the Poston and the Menon felt like too much of the same old, same old, the Menon is a DNF. Maybe it’s unfair and just a matter of timing. If the Menon is reviewed here, I’ll be interested to see how it rates and if I then feel like going back to finish it.
“like melty Hershey’s Kisses on like the worst day of your period.”
It’s always tough when an author tries to make the move from YA to adult writing and you get obvious lines like these which hint they’re still stuck in the YA mindset. She should sue the ex for stealing her fictional story and yet punching happens.
This is the first book I ever DNFed over a character name. I really do not understand why she went with Benji Andor for a name. I mean, I love Reylo fanfic as much as the next person, but please, I beg you Reylo fanfic writers who get to turn fanfic into published works, could you please not be so obvious? I do not need the MMC to be Ben, Benji, or Adam. I don’t need the best friend to be named Rose.
Oh my God, it didn’t click with me until you pointed that out!
There was also the “constellation of moles” trope to describe Adam Driver’s face. Argh. I give Ali Hazlewood credit for The Love Hypothesis in making it less obvious (though I had read and really enjoyed the original fanfic).
This is the first negative review I’ve read of this one. I’m surprised lol. I didn’t love it but it was cute. Thought it was witty. Loved the ending .
I agree Cathy. I read this a few months ago and gave it 4 stars. To me it read more like chick lit than romance (so heat level didn’t bother me) and I really enjoyed the humor and the relationships (including the heroine with Benji). It wasn’t perfect, but I found it really enjoyable and hopeful.