This book made me ugly-cry in the school pickup line and I regret nothing.
Let me back up. I started Dead Romantics on a Monday during Sophie's nap - which she actually took, miracle of miracles - and finished it by Thursday evening during my sacred car-in-the-garage time. Four days. For a mom who gets her audiobooks in 25-minute scraps, that's basically speedrunning.
A Ghost Romance Shouldn't Work This Well
Here's the pitch: Florence Day ghostwrites romance novels but no longer believes in love (relatable, at least on the days when Lucas has drawn on the walls with permanent marker and my husband asks what's for dinner). She has to go home to her small Southern town for her dad's funeral, and her annoyingly hot new editor shows up as a literal ghost at the family funeral parlor. It sounds like it should be campy. And parts of it are - there are moonlit cemetery strolls and a whole eccentric family who runs a funeral home and talks to the dead like it's Tuesday. But Ashley Poston does something sneaky. She wraps genuine, gut-punch grief inside this quirky rom-com setup, and by the time you realize what's happening, you're sitting in a Target parking lot with tears running down your face.
The grief parts hit different when you're a parent. Florence's relationship with her dad, the way she ran from home for a decade and is now drowning in regret - I wasn't prepared. The funeral scene is somehow both funny and devastating, which is a trick I didn't think books could pull off. And then there's this dance party scene later that just... broke me. In the best way. Made me cry at school pickup. Worth it though. The same kind of sneaky emotional gut-punch lives in Auggie & Me — I picked that one up thinking it was light and ended up absolutely wrecked in the best possible way.
The romance itself is slow-burn-ish, which I appreciate. Ben - the ghost editor - is this big, earnest, slightly awkward guy who can't touch anything or anyone, which creates this aching tension that works way better than it has any right to. Yes, it's a little predictable. You know where it's going. But sometimes you don't need groundbreaking. Sometimes you need the comfort of knowing the ending will land, and this one does.
Eileen Stevens Gets the Assignment
Eileen Stevens narrates this and she's genuinely great. Her voice has this warmth that makes Florence's family feel real - each sibling, the eccentric grandma, the whole quirky small-town cast gets their own personality. She shifts between Florence's dry sarcasm and her raw grief moments without it ever feeling like whiplash. The emotional delivery during the heavier scenes is what got me - she doesn't oversell it, just lets the words do the work with the right amount of crack in the voice.
One tiny gripe that I noticed because I am a person who listens to the same passages multiple times when Sophie wakes up mid-chapter: there's a running bit about Florence's dog where the phrase "I scrubbed him behind the ears" comes up enough times that I started mentally tallying it. Not a dealbreaker, just one of those things that sticks out on audio in a way it probably wouldn't on the page.
The "Yes, But" Section (Because I'm Honest)
Look, this book isn't perfect. The pacing in the middle gets a little uneven - Florence bouncing between family drama, ghostly shenanigans, and her book deadline sometimes feels like it's rushing through transitions. And if insta-love bothers you, there are moments where the connection between Florence and Ben moves faster than the setup earns. I bought it because of the supernatural element (hard to take it slow when one of you is literally dead), but I get why some people would side-eye it.
Also, there's a side character whose storyline just... never fully resolves? It bugged me for about an hour and then I let it go because the main emotional arc stuck the landing so hard that I forgave it.
But here's the thing that matters: this book survived 47 pauses and still made sense. I could put it down when Sophie decided nap time was over after 40 minutes, pick it back up during school drop-off, and never once feel lost. For a book juggling ghosts, grief, family dynamics, romance, and a publishing industry subplot, that's impressive. The structure is clean enough to follow in fragments but emotional enough to hit hard when you get a longer stretch.
Pour a Glass and Press Play
If you're a mom who needs a book that will make you feel things but also leave you with a satisfying ending - exactly what I needed - this is your next listen. It's funny and sad and romantic in roughly equal measure. My book club will love this (if I ever have time for book club again). Not for you if you need your romances completely grounded in reality, or if ghost premises make you roll your eyes. But if you've ever cried over a parent, loved a small town even when it drove you crazy, or needed to believe that love stories can still surprise you even when you see the ending coming? Car time approved. I finished this during nap time. High praise.
