Aftertaste

“A haunting evocation of pain and pleasure, and the power of food.” —Nigella Lawson What if you could have one last meal with someone you’ve loved, someone you’ve 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 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 departed loved ones—just for one last meal. Convinced that his life's purpose is to serve closure to grieving strangers, he sets out to learn all he can be entering a particularly fiery ring of Hell: the New York culinary scene. But as his kitchen skills catch up with his ambitions, he's 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’ll go to find satisfaction.