By Stephanie Candelario Santiago
Edited by Emilee Saigh
There comes a point in our lives where we must come to terms with two inevitable truths: we will eventually lose someone, and magic isn’t real. Even though they seem like two very straightforward facts, we put off accepting them for as long as we can, clinging to the hope that we’ll be the exception to the rule. Once it becomes present in our minds, it can be hard to think about anything else. So, we turn to art and books to help us escape and at times, understand these feelings. You can watch a thousand movies and read numerous novels, trying to find the answers to this and come up empty with what you’re truly looking for.
However, every once in a while, there is an artist who comes along and reminds us the pain of loss can only be achieved by the beauty of existing and being loved so deeply. They help us understand it’s actually a privilege, rather than a curse, to miss someone that much. This is what Ashley Poston has managed to do with her romance novels. By blending magical realism with themes of love and loss, she crafts unforgettable love stories with relatable characters that help us feel seen. In this article we’ll explore Poston’s books and the different types of grief she explores that shape the characters and their relationships towards each other and life in general.
(Warning: This article will contain spoilers for the books mentioned in this list.)
The book that started it all. The Dead Romantics was the first title I read from Ashley Poston, and I instantly fell in love with her words and her ability to portray emotions I was just starting to get a hold of myself. This story follows Florence, a girl who has the ability to communicate with spirits except for the one she truly wants to talk to.
Florence’s abilities are tied to every aspect of her life. Not only does the girl who sees ghosts work as ghost writer but, to top it all off, her family owns a funeral home. The story starts to unfold when Florence has to leave her life in the city to go back to her hometown for her father’s funeral. Along with navigating her grief, she has to deal with the ghost of her prickly and very handsome editor, who was pestering her to turn in a new draft for a book just a few days prior.
I thought it was a very interesting concept to not have Florence see the ghost of her dad, even though she kept looking for him in every corner of the funeral home. It highlights that there was no unfinished business for him, and he truly found peace once he passed. For most of the book, Florence views her powers as something she was burdened with, but as she starts to make peace with her dad’s death, she begins to see just how much her abilities help bring the dead—and the living—some much-needed closure.
My love for this novel is so great it’s hard to put into words. I loved it so much I even got a tattoo in honor of it. The Seven Year Slip features Clementine, a girl who doesn’t want to live in a present where her aunt is no longer alive, so a time-traveling apartment sends her back to a time she is. When Clementine inherits the apartment from her aunt, she has no idea the stories she’d been told about it being magical are actually true. The catch is, being sent back seven years means she has to share the apartment with Iwan, a man who just moved to the city to make it as a chef.
When Clementine, or Clem, reunites with Iwan in the present, she has trouble reconciling the version of him from seven years ago with the one standing in front of her. Clem’s inability to accept Iwan has changed ties in perfectly with her grief journey and what the apartment represents. She doesn’t want to accept change because it means fully accepting that her aunt is gone for good.
This novel found me at just the right time and I’m forever grateful for it. By the end of it, I was full on sobbing at how beautifully Clem’s story was wrapped up. Clem finally lets the memory of her aunt go, and in turn, loses access to the apartment's magic. But she realizes the real magic lies in the present and in the life she gets to build with the people she loves.
When Elsy decides to go on her book club retreat to escape her failed engagement, she doesn’t expect to find herself right in the middle of a small town which happens to be the setting of her favorite series. Elsy sees this as an opportunity to walk among her favorite characters and maybe find out how the story actually ends, since the author of the series passed away before she could finish them. However, she is thrown off by the presence of a grumpy librarian she doesn’t remember being part of the cast of characters for her beloved series.
A Novel Love Story tackles grieving a relationship in two separate ways. Elsy escapes to Eloraton because she wants a break from her real life and doesn’t want to face the way her relationship imploded. Being in Eloraton means she can slip into a fantasy land where she doesn’t have to think about what happened and how it made her feel. Then we have Anders, who is grieving a relationship in a more literal sense and has used Eloraton as his way of keeping her memory alive. The imminent threat of not being able to get back into the town once you leave is a direct parallel of what the characters are feeling.
Leaving Eloraton means accepting the end of their respective relationships and closing that chapter for good, something they both struggle with throughout the novel. Nevertheless, one can’t live in a fantasy forever, and when Elsy and Anders finally understand that and make the choice to move on, they experience new beginnings together.
Sounds Like Love follows a different kind of grief than the rest of the books on this list: the feeling of grieving someone who is still alive. Joni’s mom has dementia, a debilitating illness which strips a person of their identity long before they’re gone. Joni has to battle this knowledge along with the fact she can’t seem to do the one thing she's always been good at: write music. Just when she thinks her writer's block might become a permanent fixture in her life, she starts to hear a melody in her head; one that ties her to Sasha, a former pop star. Their musical bond telepathically links them together, and they start to work together to finish the song stuck in both their heads to break their link.
What follows is an exploration of healing, creativity, and grief, all tied with Poston’s key magical realism themes. It challenges the belief that great art comes from difficult situations or from pain. It isn’t until Joni is able to accept her feelings regarding her mom’s condition and start to heal that she’s able to break out of her writer's block. Through their partnership, Joni and Sasha show us healing isn’t something that has to be done alone.
Poston’s newest release has become a quick favorite of mine. The Someday Garden is set in an old manor with hidden magical gardens containing handsome strangers behind its gates. Sophie is a gardener who takes a job at Lilymoor House to rebuild its famous gardens for reasons that go far beyond her love for plants. During her renovations, she finds a magical garden stuck in time and the man who’s imprisoned inside. Between trying to find a way to get him out and battling through her growing feelings for him while also managing her own grief, Sophie finds out time and moving forward aren’t so linear after all.
In this novel, Sophie buries herself in work to avoid dealing with the loss of her best friend. Originally, she believed coming to Lilymoor—a place they both loved—would help her through it, but it doesn’t end up working the way she thought. Sophie's refusal to move on comes from the fact that she doesn’t want to become a version of herself her best friend will never get to know; a common side effect of grieving. The garden, just like Sophie, was stuck in a past version of itself that wasn’t working anymore, and just like Sophie, it isn’t until it grows that it becomes what it was always meant to be. The Someday Garden teaches us changing doesn’t mean forgetting, and the memories of the people we love will grow with us.
Ashley Poston’s novels have it all: romance, magic, and insightful moments that stay with you long after you turn the page. As someone who’s gone through similar situations as her characters, seeing grief discussed in such a beautiful and caring way made me understand it more from my own experiences. That’s what a great novel is supposed to do, to get you to look at the world differently and create a better understanding of it and yourself. If any of these descriptions resonated with you I urge you to give these novels a chance, I promise you won’t regret diving into these stories!
Writers note: Before reading, check if any of the topics discussed could be triggering for you. Even though they are handled with care, these novels still touch on grief and other topics that might be heavy for some readers.
Want to shop the books in this article? Check out our bookshop.org list (affiliate link)