Book Review: The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston

July 31, 2025July 31, 2025 Dini @ dinipandareads10 Comments

The Seven Year Slip
Publisher: HQ
Pub Date: 27 June 2023
Genre: Contemporary Romance

Panda Rating:

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📖 SYNOPSIS

An overworked book publicist with a perfectly planned future hits a snag when she falls in love with her temporary roommate…only to discover he lives seven years in the past, in this witty and wise new novel from the bestselling author of The Dead Romantics.

Sometimes, the worst day of your life happens, and you have to figure out how to live after it.

Six months ago, Clementine West had the worst day of her life. So, she came up with a plan to keep her heart safe: stay busy, work hard, take no risks. And it’s been working.

That is until one day she finds a strange man standing in her kitchen. A man with kind eyes, a crooked smile, and a recipe for the perfect lemon meringue pie. The kind of man that, before everything, she could have fallen for…

He’s perfect but for one thing: he lives in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact.

This should be impossible, but Clementine used to love impossible things. And maybe, just maybe, she will again. After all, love is never a matter of time – but a matter of timing.

⚠️ CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS

Death of family member by suicide (recounted), grief & loss depiction, death of a grandparent from dementia (recounted)

Thanks to Leslie @ Books Are the New Black for buddy reading this with me! We loved it so hard! 💜

TL;DR: There was so much that I loved about this book but it was essentially a love letter to all the things that my inner (reluctantly) hopeless romantic dreams about and loves to giggle and kick my feet over. It’s one of those “impossible romances” a la Serendipity, Sleepless in Seattle, and Notting Hill (among others) rolled into one and my heart had a swooning good time reading about Clementine and Iwan’s story. This is a book that is heavily centered on grief and being stuck in the past, and of course, it’s about healing and finding hope through finding yourself again. I think if you’ve enjoyed Poston’s other romances, you’re bound to enjoy this one too!

Book Review: The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston

April 27, 2023September 1, 2023 Dini @ dinipandareads25 Comments

The Dead Romantics
Publisher: HQ
Pub Date: 28 June 2022
Genre: Contemporary Paranormal Romance

Panda Rating:

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📖 SYNOPSIS

A disillusioned millennial ghostwriter who, quite literally, has some ghosts of her own, has to find her way back home in this sparkling adult debut from national bestselling author Ashley Poston.

Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most prolific romance authors in the industry, and she has a problem—after a terrible breakup, she no longer believes in love. It’s as good as dead.

When her new editor, a too-handsome mountain of a man, won’t give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive, and she must return home for the first time in a decade to help her family bury her beloved father. For ten years, she’s run from the town that never understood her, and even though she misses the sound of a warm Southern night and her eccentric, loving family and their funeral parlor, she can’t bring herself to stay. Even with her father gone, it feels like nothing in this town has changed. And she hates it.

Until she finds a ghost standing at the funeral parlor’s front door, just as broad and infuriatingly handsome as ever, and he’s just as confused about why he’s there as she is.

Romance is most certainly dead . . . but so is her new editor, and his unfinished business will have her second-guessing everything she’s ever known about love stories.

⚠️ CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS

Death of a parent, grief, toxic relationship, cheating (briefly recounted), bullying (recounted), murder (recounted)

TL;DR: Everything about this resonated and it was wonderful. I think I’ve discovered another new favourite this year! I’m an emotional reader as it is but I love when a book can reel me in and get me so deeply in my feelings. I don’t know if it’s the things that have been going on with me personally over the last year (plus+), but the discussions of loss, grief and healing, finding hope, and rediscovering love, just hit me so hard and I found myself constantly crying, laughing, and swooning as I read. I also loved the honest and heartfelt romance—it was swoony and heartwarming and I enjoyed reading about Florence and Ben together! Long story short, I’m so glad I read this and I highly recommend it.

Book Review: Among the Beasts & Briars by Ashley Poston

January 15, 2021June 23, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads13 Comments

Note: Review originally posted on Goodreads 07 January 2021

Among the Beasts & Briars
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Published: 20 October 2020
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Panda Rating:

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Cerys is safe in the kingdom of Aloriya.

Here there are no droughts, disease, or famine, and peace is everlasting. It has been this way for hundreds of years, since the first king made a bargain with the Lady who ruled the forest that borders the kingdom. But as Aloriya prospered, the woods grew dark, cursed, and forbidden. Cerys knows this all too well: when she was young, she barely escaped as the woods killed her friends and her mother. Now Cerys carries a small bit of the curse—the magic—in her blood, a reminder of the day she lost everything. The most danger she faces now, as a gardener’s daughter, is the annoying fox who stalks the royal gardens and won’t leave her alone.

As a new queen is crowned, however, things long hidden in the woods descend on the kingdom itself. Cerys is forced on the run, her only companions the small fox from the garden, a strange and powerful bear, and the magic in her veins. It’s up to her to find the legendary Lady of the Wilds and beg for a way to save her home. But the road is darker and more dangerous than she knows, and as secrets from the past are uncovered amid the teeth and roots of the forest, it’s going to take everything she has just to survive.

TL;DR: Mine is an unpopular opinion but I didn’t end up loving this as much as I hoped I would and I was sad about not enjoying it more. If you’re looking for a YA fantasy that’s light on the world building and character development, but has a nice fairytale vibe with “far-off places, magical spells, and a prince in disguise” then I would recommend it!

Goodreads Monday – Among the Beasts & Briars by Ashley Poston

December 21, 2020December 21, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads17 Comments

Welcome back to Goodreads Monday! It’s been a very hot minute since I did one but I figured I might as well get back into it! This weekly meme was started by @Lauren’s Page Turners and it invites you to pick a book from your TBR and explain why you want to read it. Easy enough, right? Feel free to join in if you want to! I’ll be using a random number generator to pick my books from my insanely long GR Want-to-read list.*

*Sorry if a book has been featured twice! I need to make better note of which ones I’ve done already!

This week’s featured book is Among the Beasts & Briars by Ashley Poston. This is a fairy tale inspired YA fantasy that was published in October 2020 and has a 3.88 rating on Goodreads with 600+ reviews.

Goodreads Monday – Bookish and the Beast by Ashley Poston

April 27, 2020April 28, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads23 Comments

Welcome back to Goodreads Monday! This weekly meme was started by @Lauren’s Page Turners and it invites you to pick a book from your TBR and explain why you want to read it. Easy enough, right? Feel free to join in if you want to! I’ll be using a random number generator to pick my books from my insanely long GR Want-to-read list.

This week’s featured book is Bookish and the Beast by Ashley Poston. I think this is the third book in a series but when I saw the cover/title and synopsis, I knew I needed to get my hands on this book. It sounds so cute. This YA contemporary retelling will be released in June 2020!