Available Formats
Hardback
Published: 30th September 2025
Paperback
Published: 3rd June 2025
Hardback, Large Print Edition
Published: 1st September 2025
Aftertaste
By (Author) Daria Lavelle
Thorndike Press
Thorndike
1st September 2025
Large Print Edition
United States
General
Fiction
Classic horror and ghost stories
Comic (humorous) fantasy
Hardback
580
A haunting evocation of pain and pleasure, and the power of food. Nigella Lawson
What if you could have one last meal with someone youve loved, someone youve 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.
A food story to binge.
A ghost story to devour.
A love story to savor.
Konstantin Duhovny is a haunted man. His father died when he was ten, and ghosts have been hovering around him ever since. Kostya cant exactly see the ghosts, but he can taste their favorite foods. Flavors of meals hes 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 hes tasting. And everything changes.
Kostya discovers that he can reunite people with their deceased loved onesat least for the length of time it takes them to eat a dish that hes prepared. He thinks his lifes 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 hungerand how far wed go to find satisfaction.