Book Review: AFTERTASTE by Daria Lavelle

AFTERTASTE by Daria Lavelle (Simon & Schuster, release date May 20, 2025) Kindle Edition, 400 pages. Synopsis on the Goodreads website . . . . .

What if you could have one last meal with someone you’ve loved, someone you’ve lost? Combining the magic of Under the Whispering Door with the high-stakes culinary world of Sweetbitter, Aftertaste is an epic love story, a dark comedy, and a synesthetic adventure through food and grief.

Konstantin “Kostya” Duhhovny is a haunted man. When he was a child, his beloved father died shortly after their family immigrated to Brooklyn from Ukraine, and ghosts have been hovering around Kostya ever since. Kostya can’t exactly see the ghosts, but he can taste their favorite foods. Flavors of meals he’s never eaten will flood his mouth, a sign that a spirit is present. Kostya has kept these aftertastes a secret for most of his life, but one night, he decides to act on what he’s tasting. And everything changes.

Kostya discovers that he can reunite people with their deceased loved ones—at least for the length of time it takes for them to eat a meal he prepares for them. He realizes that perhaps his life’s purpose is offering closure to grieving strangers—and that he might finally be able to find closure himself.

Kostya sets out to learn everything he can by entering a particularly fiery ring of Hell: the New York culinary scene. As his kitchen skills begin to catch up with his ambitions, Kostya is too blind to see the catastrophe that looms. And the one person who knows Kostya must be stopped happens to be falling in love with him.

Set in the bustling world of New York restaurants and teeming with mouthwatering food writing, Aftertaste is a whirlwind romance, a heart-wrenching look at love and loss, and a ghost story about all the ways we hunger—and how far we’d go to find satisfaction. Lavelle’s debut is a multi-course tasting menu of a book that will sate, delight, excite, comfort, and inspire even the pickiest of readers.

My Five-Star review on the Goodreads website . . . . .

Imagine having the ability to reunite mourning individuals with deceased family members, always over a shared meal that serves as the catalyst for the supernatural encounter.

That's the premise of AFTERTASTE, a hearty blend of romance and urban fantasy that takes place within the world of upscale restaurants and cuisine. This features characters to care about and share their ups and downs wholeheartedly. 

There are a few novels that I find it difficult to do justice to within a review, not because it's hard to describe but because I'd rather not spoil the experience and the discovery of the wonders within this story. In every situation, those are the novels that deeply touched me and evoked numerous sentiments both sad and joyful. AFTERTASTE joins that small company within my favorite reads, among the books that I want to share so much that I end up buying copies for friends.

This is a great debut novel, not flawless but really close to it. Daria Lavelle knows how to immerse readers into her romantasy world and touch their hearts. I'm grateful to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing an advanced digital review copy.