Synopsis:
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 Duhovny is a haunted man. His father died when he was ten, 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 dish that he’s prepared. He thinks his life’s purpose might be to offer closure to grieving strangers, and sets out to learn all he can by entering a particularly fiery ring of Hell: the New York culinary scene. But as his kitchen skills catch up with his ambitions, Kostya is too blind to see the catastrophe looming in the Afterlife. And the one person who knows Kostya must be stopped also 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 Edition:
E-ARC provided by Net Galley
My Thoughts:
I think I liked Aftertaste conceptually more than I did in reality. It is a really strong premise – using food (which we know ties HEAVILY to memory in humans) as a sort of tether for the dead to the living. I really like that idea in theory, but in execution, I do feel like Aftertaste left me wanting something more.
Although I loved the way that Kostya’s life fit into the story (his strained relationship with his mother, and the fact that he deeply regrets the last words he spoke to his late father, which kind of drives the whole narrative), I didn’t love him as a character. Or any of the characters, really. And I didn’t love the way he fit with the rest of them. His relationship with Maura seemed really over-the-top to me. Like, they met once and now they’re soulmates. But only on Kostya’s end – at least at the beginning. You know how that one goes.
Kostya felt to me like every action he took was in service of a performance of himself, rather than any real characterization. He didn’t feel authentic, know what I mean? Like, it feels like he hopped directly from living for Frankie to living for Maura. I know some people are like that, but…I don’t want to read about them particularly…
I appreciate that he was doing what he was doing ostensibly to help people (while also working up the courage/practice to try to bring back his dad successfully), but it wasn’t enough to keep me fully in the story.
Otherwise, the premise was pretty entertaining. Although I do feel the story failed to capture the horrors of working in a professional kitchen (especially one in a high-end restaurant), it did at least focus heavily on food. Although the line “I love you like salt” is going to haunt me – and not in a good way.
Rating:
Ultimately, I don’t think I’m this book’s target audience. I went out on a limb selecting it, because I am interested in both spec-fic and food, but it just didn’t hit for me. However, if you like your speculative to be heavy on the contemporary fiction, this might be just the thing for you. I can see where other people would really dig on it. I’m just not those people.
Aftertaste
By Daria Lavelle
St. Martin's Press
Published: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9781668061596
Hardcover, Paperback, E-book, Audio
400 Pages
