Thank you to Simon & Schuster for the free copy for review.

Aftertaste is one of those rare books that sneaks up on you. What begins as an odd little ghost story about food and grief quietly transforms into a moving exploration of love, purpose, and the things we carry even after death.

Konstantin Duhovny has been haunted since he was ten. Not in the traditional sense. He doesn’t see ghosts but he tastes them. The favorite meals of the dead flood his mouth at random, uninvited and unexplained. It’s only when he acts on one of these phantom flavors that he realizes he can use this bizarre gift to bring the dead back for a final meal with the living.

From there, the story unfolds like a carefully plated tasting menu: each chapter another course in Konstantin’s transformation from grief-stricken child to ambitious New York chef, determined to offer closure to strangers through the magic of food. The book is deeply rooted in the chaotic, high-stakes world of fine dining, and Lavelle’s food writing is top-tier—rich, detailed, and absolutely mouthwatering.

I alternated between reading and listening to the audiobook, and the full cast performance added depth and warmth to the narrative. It really brought the characters to life, especially the standouts: Frankie and Maura. I wasn’t sold on the romance at first (there’s a whiff of insta-love) but as Maura’s backstory developed, I found myself more invested in her than in Kostya himself, who always remained a bit emotionally opaque.

The beginning stumbles slightly with fast-forwarded timelines and some disjointed pacing, but once it finds its rhythm, Aftertaste becomes something truly special. It’s part culinary coming-of-age, part supernatural meditation on grief, and part love story with an apocalyptic edge.

The final chapters surprised me with how much they moved me. The emotional payoff was subtle but powerful. Bittersweet, like the lingering taste of something you didn’t know you were hungry for.

A fantastic debut. Rich, inventive, and full of heart. Just maybe don’t read it on an empty stomach.

Thank you @simonbooks for the ARC! ♡

·..·˙✧˖°⋆⊹ This one is for the foodies. ⊹⋆..·˙✧˖°·∘
↳ What if you could bring someone back from the dead for one last meal?
↳ That’s Kostya’s special ability: combining cooking with resurrection.
↳ However nothing this powerful comes without a cost…

I spent more than half of these pages feeling like a hungry ghost, salivating over the mouth-watering smells, tastes, flavors.

Food connects us to people and memories, culture and community, which is where this book shines. Evoking Before the Coffee Gets Cold, and other cozy translated food fiction, this one is meta without a linear plot.

There’s also a love story going on. Kostya and Maura are both guarding their hearts and their secrets, behind walls of loss and layers of past trauma.

The romance was heavy on miscommunication, however the droolworthy meals and life lessons kept me turning the pages.

▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||။‌‌‌‌‌|• 🎧 I listened to some of this on audio using Spotify hours, and full cast narration was really nice with Ukrainian and Russian accents.

The descriptions of food in this book lead me to believe that the author must either be a chef or a foodie, because wow, please write a culinary cookbook next lol! I was never not thinking about food when reading this book.

The premise of this story was what lured me in. I loved the concept of food being linked in with memories and the connection that keeps souls tethered to the world. When the MC began his journey of bringing ghosts back to speak to their loved ones, I was so intrigued and loved the conversations. What I wasn’t expecting was for the story to take a twist around the halfway mark into a horror/mystery-esque story. I wish the story could have stayed on its original track, but I still enjoyed the book over-all.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an E-ARC copy of this book.

What an interesting supernatural concept. If you had a superpower, you wouldn’t necessarily think being able to taste a drink or a dish associated with favorite memories of a deceased love one would top the list. However, for this story, it’s an amazing and sometimes vexing ability of our main character Konstantin. He’s struggling to find his way as an adult and continues to grapple with the childhood loss of his father who he loved deeply. One night he takes a chance at making the cocktail he’s tasting and he reunites a loved one for a customer. He believes he’s found his purpose in life, what could go wrong. The story is told in alternating perspectives from what appears to be a tour guide and Konstantin. I throughly enjoyed the book.

What a fascinating read! I really appreciated the concept and enjoyed watching the main characters evolve throughout the story. Some parts felt a bit slow, especially the extended descriptions of menus and various dishes—but if you're a food enthusiast who loves cooking, you might find those sections especially appealing. Overall, it was a thoroughly enjoyable book.

The concept of this book is incredible. Being able to make a meal for someone so they can see their loved one back from the dead for one last time is so much fun and has a lot of range. Where the book lost me was in the last 1/3 and the ending. It makes sense given what we know about Kostya and his feelings/attitude, but I wanted more for him.

Aftertaste is a richly layered debut that lingers on the palate long after the final page—much like the culinary creations it so lovingly describes. Daria Lavelle weaves food, love, ambition, and grief into a beautifully told story about second chances and self-discovery.

The protagonist, a once-rising chef grappling with personal loss and professional burnout, is deeply relatable. Her journey is filled with emotional nuance, from rekindling a complicated romance to rediscovering her passion in the kitchen. Lavelle writes with warmth and precision, giving us characters that feel alive, flawed, and worthy of rooting for.

But what truly sets Aftertaste apart is its sensuality—every dish, every memory, every touch is described with mouthwatering detail and emotional resonance. It’s a book for food lovers, sure, but also for anyone who’s ever had to rebuild from the ashes of disappointment.

Perfect for fans of Sweetbitter or One Italian Summer, this novel delivers emotional depth without losing its lightness. A perfect bittersweet bite of a book.

This was such a creative, spellbinding journey! I love the concept of food holding memories and thought this was brilliant and thought provoking. This wasn't on my radar until I got on booksta, but I'm so glad I picked this one up!! Thank you for the arc!

I thought that it was an interesting premise for a book. At first, I was engaged but as the story progressed, I felt myself getting bored with it. It felt too long, and so many of the pages are food descriptions. I can see a lot of people enjoying this story, so I'd encourage people to read it. It just fell a bit flat for me.

5 glowing stars! Aftertaste is an absolute masterpiece and my favorite read of the year so far (out of 84 books)! The premise of this book is brilliant. It is fresh, original, and unlike anything I have ever read before. The writing is ethereal and beautiful, with rich captivating descriptions of food that made my mouth water constantly.

Soon after suddenly losing his father as child, a grieving Konstantin Duhovny (Kostya) discovers he can connect with the dead through aftertastes of their favorite meals. Kostya hides this gift for many years into adulthood, unsure what to make of it, until one night when he is down on his luck and spontaneously decides to recreate an aftertaste. Kostya is in disbelief when the ghost connected with it appears out of thin air to reunite with their spouse while the meal is consumed. Kostya believes he may have found his purpose in life and ultimately decides to start working in restaurants in hopes of becoming a chef that can reunite grieving strangers with their loved ones in the afterlife and help them find closure. As he attempts this well-intentioned quest and begins to see doors open to money and fame, the plot thickens and it seems Kostya may have bitten off more than he could chew.

The book is heavily food-oriented, with rich descriptions of dishes and flavor profiles (not all fine dining or entirely delicious) that provide a fully immersive experience. It is also a story of love, life, and loss. I truly felt such a wide range of emotions while reading, as the story covers a variety of genres and topics. There are many unique supporting characters woven throughout that helped enrich the plot and progress the storyline. There are a few major jaw dropping twists in the story that completely caught me by surprise! This book is perfect for readers who love: magical realism, paranormal, foodie scene, set in NYC, and storylines involving grief, friendship, passion, and love. Aftertaste is the most unique, beautiful, stunning book I have read in a long time and I cannot recommend it highly enough! Thank you to NetGalley, Daria Lavelle, and Simon & Schuster for the gifted ARC. This is a voluntary and honest review.

This one surprised me—sexy, smart, and centered on reinvention. Elise is the kind of woman you root for because she’s flawed but real. There’s wine, spice, and just enough drama to keep the pages flying. Felt like a rom-dram that left a sweet little afterkick.
“Sometimes bitterness is just flavor that hasn’t settled.”

This is a fairly solid debut novel. There are times where it feels like it's trying to go after several trends at once (paranormal romance! cooking! ghosts!), and there's a few cases of Unneccessary Capital Letters, but overall, it's a fairly solid book set around the premise that sometimes you can cook something well enough that it can conjure up a loved one's ghost for the living. The brief interlude with the Russian mob is a bit weird. Overall, worth my time having read it.

Thank you so much to Simon & Schuster for the eARC of Aftertaste!

This is definitely not a book that I would typically read but I was drawn in by food & ghosts — two of the best things. The concept felt really unique, the writing was beautiful & there were definitely a lot of emotions involved, with a huge emphasis on grief. This book feels special.

The concept of this book is fun and unique- a chef who can taste meals from ghosts and recreate them? I couldn't wait to dive in. After a slow start I kept waiting for it to pick up and captivate me but I struggled to get into it the entire way. Not quite fitting cleanly in any genre, it felt like I was floundering to find the point of the story.

They say scent is the highest sense tied to memory, and you can’t taste food without scent. This book was an amazing and unique view of evoking memories through food, love gained and lost, grief, overwhelming joy and despair, the what if’s and I should haves. If you could bring your loved one back for one last meal and convo for closure would you? Would you feel differently if you knew that your mourning was keeping them from moving on? This book looked as so many angles of grief, meddling with the spirits, and the age old sometimes the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I enjoyed every second of it!

This book was extremely unique and a premise that I truly have not read before. It didn’t feel completely baked (no pun intended) but overall I enjoyed the read and the characters. I loved the descriptive good writing and the creativity.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

This was a such a unique twist on a ghost story- some people can see ghosts, some can hear them but our MC Kostya can taste favored foods of ghosts. That is, when a spirit is nearby his mouth if flooded with the flavor of a food that was special to them- be it a beautiful or painful memory.
Kostya’s father died when he was a young petulant teen, and his last words to his father were angry ones. He regrets it and mourns for what he has lost. This eventually leads to him recreating a cocktail for a grieving man , and the drink magically makes the man’s dead wife appear before their eyes. More experimentation occurs and Kostya meets a beautiful girl who tells fortunes. She warns him not to mess with things he doesn’t understand. Instead he becomes a chief to gain the necessary skills to perfectly recreate the flavors and textures he experiences when the ghosts come to him via Clairgustance. mostly, he wasn’t to see his father again and to say he is sorry. Food has always been a form a love, of celebration and a way to ease grief and for ghosts it’s no different. They use food as a connection to those they left behind, those that are still hanging onto them, via the thin line that connects this world to theirs. Only when the living let go, can the ghosts move on.
The story is so beautifully told, though I did find it a bit slow in the middle, and confusing at the end. I would like to have had more emotional connection to the characters, but they fell a bit flat for me. Still an enjoyable read, would recommend.

I don't think this book liked me I tried to read it several times and just couldn't get into it. I'm gonna try again at a later date.

This was such an interesting take on a ghost story. It was a bit darker than I anticipated, but still a good story. If you are a foodie and enjoy a dark story, be sure to give this a try. Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the eARC in exchange for my review.
4 star

Wow! "Aftertaste" by Daria Lavelle was a wonderful, refreshing, creative and a new concept novel for me. A glimpse into the afterlife and the unrestful dead, mixed with passion for culinary arts was delightful and passionate. Thank you NetGalley, the author and publisher for the review copy. All opinions are my own.