Daria Lavelle — Aftertaste - with Laura Hankin

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 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 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.PURCHASE BOOK HERE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781668061596?ic_referral=YdR6StRUJ3JvzJQsa5MuZLK55jf_L5Iz6ZejRPblHKowMyHRDri2-Ktane_MjglzAYxyc0m4LAlZGNX8V87JQxP2x_AW8B08_GJcUe1VfyEV3ed_NYPlsNcs-w3sjXR8kU2BTwDaria Lavelle is an American fiction writer. Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, and raised in the New York metro area, her work explores themes of identity and belonging through magic and the uncanny. Her short stories have appeared in The Deadlands, Dread Machine, and elsewhere, and she holds degrees in writing from Princeton University and Sarah Lawrence College. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, children, and goldendoodle, all of whom love a great meal almost as much as she does. Learn more at DariaLavelle.com.Lavelle is in conversation with Laura Hankin. Hankin is a screenwriter, author, and performer whose novels include ONE-STAR ROMANCE, HAPPY & YOU KNOW IT, A SPECIAL PLACE FOR WOMEN, and THE DAYDREAMS. She lives in Washington DC, where she once fell off a treadmill twice in one day.*recorded 5/29/2025