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Aftertaste Audiobook
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Publisher Description
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 has 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 that 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.
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“Ari Fliakos’s exceptional performance of haunted Kostya Duhovny is among the many pleasures of this immersive debut…Fliakos is ably aided by Tessa Albertson, André Santana, and Kristen Sieh, who all do fine work. But it’s Fliakos’s tour-de-force narration that elevates this listening experience. In one extraordinary moment Fliakos does a breathless dramatic monologue that merges foods and flavors while ghosts hover and howl…Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile
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“A ghost story, a love story, and a mind-bending adventure, Aftertaste by Daria Lavelle turns the concept of ‘sense memory’ into a delightful ride.”
— Real Simple
Awards
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Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
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Longlisted for the Patterson/Bookshop.org Prize
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A CBS New York Book Club Pick
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About Daria Lavelle
Daria 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. Learn more at DariaLavelle.com.
About the Narrators
Ari Fliakos is an actor with experience in television, radio, film, theater, and voice-overs. He has earned four Earphones Awards, and his narration of Seth Patrick’s Reviver won the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration for paranormal fiction. On screen, he is best-known for his roles in Law & Order, Pills, and Company K.
Kristen Sieh is a voice and television actress. She has appeared on such television shows as Law & Order and Boardwalk Empire. She has also narrated several audio books.
André Santana is an award-winning audiobook narrator on a journey to tell great stories. Operating with a keen sense for realistic delivery, he inevitably becomes a fan of every book he narrates and shares that joy through his performances. As a non-binary and Black narrator, he loves both telling stories that match him and disappearing into new characters across the literary multiverse.
Corey Brill, audiobook narrator, is a stage, film, and television actor who has performed on Broadway, at The Kennedy Center, and in regional theaters across the country. He has appeared on television in The Walking Dead, Chicago PD, Scorpion, and You’re the Worst. A graduate of Otterbein College and University of California at San Diego, he also writes songs and keeps bees on a rooftop in downtown Los Angeles.