Aftertaste

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents Aftertaste by Daria Lavelle, read by Ari Fliakos, Tessa Albertson, André Santana, and Kristen Sieh.

‘Practically exploding with love, life and flavour’ LOUISE KENNEDY
‘Bitingly inventive, written with humour and heart’ ELIZABETH DAY
‘A hauntingly evocative journey through the realms of pain, pleasure and the power of food’ NIGELLA LAWSON

A food story to binge. A ghost story to devour. A love story to savour.

When dead-end dishwasher Kostya discovers the ability to summon spirits through the food he cooks, he embarks on a journey to open a New York City restaurant that serves closure – something he’s craved for as long as he can remember.

There are just three problems:

1. Kostya has some ghosts of his own.

2. His advancing menu of spirit cuisine is threatening the stability of the Afterlife itself.

3. He’s falling in love with Maura, a party psychic with her own secret connection to the Afterlife – who also happens to be the one person who knows he must be stopped.

A bittersweet cocktail of humour and heart, Aftertaste is an imaginative odyssey through food and love, life and death: the things that sustain us, connect us, transport us, and remind us who we are.

Critics Review

An amalgamation of hypermodern satire, slushy romance and savvy cultural allusion that is as vigorously brought together as its lead character’s recipes … Lavelle excels in conjuring the scenes behind the swinging doors … Aftertaste pulls together familiar elements of romance and the supernatural, adding a dash of Anthony Bourdain-style bullishness and a pinch of Davelle’s own authorial smarts. I’ll bet there’s a run on fleur de sel right after publication day
Guardian
An imaginative blend of ghost story, culinary fiction and romance served with a generous helping of magical realism … Many will find this ghostly, gastronomic romp hard to resist
Observer
I savoured every minute reading this epic story about life, death, love and loss ... Original and addictive
Daily Mail
There’s Stephen King in this novel’s ancestry, in style as well as scares ... Lavelle’s writing pounds with bada-boom dialogue and the kind of adrenaline found in an over-heated kitchen during service ... Lavelle evokes Bret Easton Ellis in American Psycho ... Macho chefs and hidden speakeasies abound; the East Village is still cool, and Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential very much alive
Irish Times
Aftertaste is a gourmet delight; it's highly original and hugely evocative, it definitely tugs at the heartstrings
Irish Examiner
A heart-warming read – a fascinating mix of food, romance and the supernatural
Take a Break
Food lovers will find a huge amount to enjoy here, as will anyone who enjoys ghost stories with a twist
Crack
Aftertaste is practically exploding with love, life and flavour. I relished every word
Louise Kennedy, author of TRESPASSES
A wondrous work where the culinary transcends the ordinary. Lavelle's debut of grief, memory and loss is deftly and satisfyingly layered
Kevin Jared Hosein, author of HUNGRY GHOSTS
Aftertaste is simply one of those books everyone's going to be talking about
Radio Times
A highly original, entertaining tour-de-force ... It had me in mind of The Ministry of Time, whose readers I think will love this
The Bookseller
A gloriously rich story
Sainsbury's
A raucously witty and entertaining novel. This expertly crafted, suspenseful tale is seasoned with a perfectly judged amount of the supernatural. The genuinely heartfelt, touching moments elevate Lavelle’s writing to a level that is nigh on impossible to put down. Meanwhile, the lavish culinary descriptions are a real danger – do not read on an empty stomach!
Leo Vardiashvili, author of HARD BY A GREAT FOREST
A breathtaking novel. Combining the grit of the restaurant world with the magic of the afterlife, Daria Lavelle perfectly blends unexpected ingredients into a book you’ll want to savour. It's a story about grief that's filled with humour, warmth and astounding creativity
Laura Hankin, author of ONE-STAR ROMANCE and THE DAYDREAMS
[A] much anticipated darkly comic debut ... about food, ghosts and the New York culinary scene
Vogue
Brilliantly constructed and wholly original, Aftertaste is like no novel you’ve ever tried before. It’s much more than your usual dish – it’s a whole literary tasting menu. Packed with ghosts, romance, fine dining and the mob, it will leave you stunned, thrilled and totally satiated
Julia Phillips, author of BEAR
A hauntingly evocative journey through the realms of pain, pleasure and the power of food
Nigella Lawson
A decadent debut that marks the arrival of a sparkling new voice. Dark and delicious, sincerely moving and at times laugh out loud funny, a heady, bittersweet, beautiful novel about life and death, grief and closure, passion and hunger. A must-read
Rachel Harrison, author of SO THIRSTY and BLACK SHEEP
This is a terrific book. Aftertaste offers the glories of food and cooking – all the yes-chef details we now love – in a cool, brilliant and suspenseful novel whose spec-fic plot wants to talk about the mysteries of sense-memory and death. I could not put it down
Joan Silber, author of SECRETS OF HAPPINESS AND IMPROVEMENT
Deliciously evocative, bitingly inventive, written with humour and heart
Elizabeth Day, author of THE PARTY and MAGPIE
Food, memory and a quest for closure drive this piquantly inventive debut … Part ghost story, part gastro romance … A Russian gangster, a psychic and lashings of bittersweet humour complete Lavelle’s moreish recipe
Mail on Sunday
A fun romp through New York’s restaurant scene and the world of the undead
Sunday Times
Debut author Daria Lavelle has distilled the tension of The Bear with the descriptive floweriness of Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer, then played with snappy, pacy prose and fascinating psychology … a fun, thoughtful exploration of grief, love and the nature of hunger. Feast upon its pages
SFX
Charmingly weird ... A novel remarkable for its distinctive concoction of supernatural elements, a soupcon of romance and a hearty focus on food – albeit that side of Lavelle’s book is of the high-pressure, darkly humorous, chef-centric variety of food-industry storytelling, popularised onscreen in recent years by ‘Boiling Point’ and ‘The Bear’
Buzz
Chef Kostya has a unique gift – he can taste the favourite dishes of dead people and, by following their exact recipes, reunite ghosts with their loved ones for the duration of a meal. The only problem? The afterlife doesn’t like it, as Kostya soon discovers. 'The Bear' meets 'Ghost' – film rights have been snapped up
Grazia

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