Verdella “Dell” Rodgers is at the top of her game. As the chef de cuisine at San Francisco’s hottest new restaurant and on the cusp of marrying the mayor’s son in the social event of the season, her life is perfect. That is until the week before her wedding when she wakes up and finds herself very much dead.
Enter Cole, a charming but bumbling entry-level clerk in the Afterlife Administration who accidentally confuses Dell for a 95-year-old woman in Kansas with the same name, claiming the wrong soul. When Cole tries to fix his mistake, their worlds collide in life- and death-changing ways.
Now walking the city as a ghost only visible to Cole, Dell is frantic to get back to her perfect life but soon learns that it wasn’t what it appeared to be, particularly when it came to the man she was about to marry and his high-profile family.
Meanwhile, Cole has no memory of who he was before working for the Afterlife Administration. As they try to uncover Cole’s past and remedy Dell’s future, they realize the mistake that brought them together might just be a twist of fate. With time running out to bring Dell back to the land of the living, she’ll have to decide if the life she left behind is truly what she wants, or if Cole’s untimely appearance could lead to an unexpected change that she didn’t know she needed. (Synopsis courtesy of Amazon.)
I had such a great time reading You'll Be the Death of Me! I feel like I breezed through it because it was so captivating and also because I wanted to find out where Dell went wrong in her life.
You'll Be the Death of Me has a lot of elements that made me think of Ghosts, including possession, ghost outfits, hauntings, ghost rules, and even romance. It's entertaining and a nice "snack" while waiting for the next season of the series (or at least the Halloween episode). It also involves cooking/restaurant ownership and there's even a living character named Jay (although that's a nickname).
The novel is mainly about a successful woman in her thirties who shares a name with a much older woman and gets mistakenly deceased by someone who works in the Afterlife Administration. He has to help her figure out where she went wrong in life in order to fix the mistake.
I just really enjoyed everything about this story. I was worried that they got to the climax too quick, but then there was more happening, so it made sense to get that part out of the way. Holly handles the topic of death in a sensitive and thoughtful way whenever it is approached, while keeping the charm of the story alive. There's a lot of humor that balances the melancholy parts out nicely. You definitely need a suspension of disbelief though! Surreal gets taken to a whole new level.
I also love how San Francisco plays into this novel. I've never been there, but Holly painted such a great picture with her descriptions that I felt like I was visiting every time I opened it.
You'll Be the Death of Me is a charming novel that I think rom-com lovers will enjoy thoroughly!
Movie casting suggestions:
Dell: Sofia Carson
Cole: Marc Herrmann
Jay: Brandon Flynn
Robbie: Emjay Anthony
Tommy: Pierson Fode
Thanks to Avon for the book in exchange for an honest review.
Also by Holly Michelle: Last Night Was Fun
Holly Michelle also writes rom-coms as Holly James, including The Big Fix and Name Your Price.
Enjoyed this post? Never miss out on future posts by following us.
Listen to this book on Speechify!
No comments:
Post a Comment