Mini Reviews: Ashley Poston 2023 Releases

Team BookCrushin have been huge fans of Ashley Poston’s books. Between the two of us, we have read every single release, including her indies! Because we love her so much, we want to share the books she has released or will release this year! We have more fandom/media tie-ins and another spectacular romance to talk about. Ashley can write in any genre she wishes and they are all hits!

The Seven Year Slip

The Seven Year Slip

by Ashley Poston
Published by: Berkley Books
on June 27, 2023
Genres: Adult, Contemporary Romance, Romance
Pages: 352
Bookshop
Goodreads

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

So Clementine forms a plan to keep her heart safe: stay busy, work hard, find someone decent to love, and try to remember to chase the moon. The last one is silly and obviously metaphorical, but her aunt always told her that you needed at least one big dream to keep going. And for the last year, that plan has gone off without a hitch. Mostly. The love part is hard because she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone—she isn’t sure her heart can take it.

And then she finds a strange man standing in the kitchen of her late aunt’s apartment. A man with kind eyes and a Southern drawl and a taste for lemon pies. The kind of man that, before it all, she would’ve fallen head-over-heels for. And she might again.

Except, he exists in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact. And she, quite literally, lives seven years in his future.

Her aunt always said the apartment was a pinch in time, a place where moments blended together like watercolors. And Clementine knows that if she lets her heart fall, she’ll be doomed.

After all, love is never a matter of time—but a matter of timing.

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 New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Romantics.

I absolutely devoured this adult romance, which has just that hint of magic that takes it from an everyday contemporary book to something so special. It had all the right elements for me to be swept away, like book publishing (some inside jokes!!), a queer eccentric aunt, and of course the time slip. I really enjoyed it and I even shed a few tears. One of my favorite reads of the year for sure. -Kelly

The Bewitching Hour (A Tara Prequel)

The Bewitching Hour (A Tara Prequel) (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Prequels)

by Ashley Poston
Published by: Disney-Hyperion
on August 1, 2023
Genres: LGBTQIA+, Paranormal, Young Adult
Pages: 351
Bookshop
Goodreads

In this Buffy the Vampire Slayer prequel, fan-favorite and LGBTQIA+ icon Tara Maclay gets the main character treatment . . . whether she wants it or not.

Tara Maclay isn’t thrilled to be in a new town for her senior year of high school. She misses her mom, her garden, her magic—and the way her dad treated her before her mom passed. But if Tara can just keep her head down, then maybe she can make it through this year in Hellborne, Vermont without the town living up to its name.

Of course, her plan falls apart immediately, as dead students start turning up around her, and she’s suddenly voted Most Likely To Have Murdered Them by the rest of the senior class. Oh, and the fellow new girl Tara’s crushing on? Turns out to be a witch-hunter. . . . So maybe it’s not the worst thing that Tara’s magic is majorly malfunctioning.

As the body count rises, Tara has to get past her fears, reconnect with her magic, and cast herself in a more central role to save the town—even if it means putting her new relationship at risk.

The Bewitching Hour is a full of '90s nostalgia, mysterious murders, and a star-crossed sapphic romance, blended perfectly together by New York Times and USA Todaybest-selling author Ashley Poston.

Every Buffy fan we know (and especially the queer community) has wanted justice for Tara. We have always needed more backstory and this prequel is a satisfying look into Tara’s life before Sunnydale. I (Christy) realize I’ve been saying we need another sapphic love story from Ashley and I realize she has delivered both a satisfying look into Tara’s life while also giving us more sapphic relationships! – Christy

Hawkeye: Bishop Takes King

Hawkeye: Bishop Takes King

by Ashley Poston
Published by: Marvel Press
on October 3, 2023
Genres: Mystery, Paranormal, Young Adult
Pages: 368
Bookshop
Goodreads

Kate Bishop's Hawkeye is still figuring out how to be a Super Hero—and a functioning human being—in this thrilling YA mystery adventure that has her crossing paths with some of the Marvel Universe's greatest heroes—and most dangerous villains.

When Kate Bishop, the young Hawkeye, solves a minor crime and saves the surprisingly cute Milo in the process, she counts it as a rare win. But a mix-up of their bags means that nope, Kate's life is still refusing to run smoothly. In that bag is a mysterious book that holds powerful, dangerous secrets—ones that New York City's most powerful super villain, the Kingpin, would kill to uncover.

Kate finds herself on the run, searching for Milo and what he knows, texting her Super Hero besties for moral support, and trying to solve the mystery she's blundered into before she becomes the victim of her own story.

Just like its main character, Kate Bishop, Ashley Poston's Super Hero adventure doesn't miss a single shot in one of the funniest, twistiest Marvel stories ever told.

As soon as this popped up as an ARC on NetGalley, I (Christy) grabbed it and flew through it! I love that we are getting more Marvel novels (shoutout to the original Black Widow novel, which was one of my very first book events!). This story is book-lover’s mystery, with an engaging murder mystery that will keep you fully in the story. Kate is at her best when she is bantering with others – and we get much of that in her engagement with Clint and America! You don’t need to know anything about the current Marvel universe or even Kate to enjoy this book (but I highly recommend you do because Kate is THE BEST). – Christy

The Dead Romantics

The Dead Romantics

by Ashley Poston
Published by: Berkley
on June 28, 2022
Genres: Adult, Contemporary Romance, Paranormal
Pages: 368
Bookshop
Goodreads

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.

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.

Ashley’s debut adult romance has lived in our heads since its release and if we could read it all over again for the first time, we would! Ashley navigates a ghost love story in such a beautiful way, including believable intimacy. If you loved the movie Ghost, you will love The Dead Romantics! Now we know that this wasn’t released this year, but it is not to be missed! – Christy