Jake has fallen head over heels with Dandelion. There’s just one problem. Dandelion is dead.
Don’t let the title of my debut novel fool you – Dandelion is Dead is a story about life.
Although I wasn’t going to be able to give Poppy back her sister, I could show her that she could still be surprised by the heat and humour of her own life.
In Dandelion’s wake, Poppy collides with Jake and a lustful type of hope sparks within her – although with it, she kicks off a great deceit. I love to write about desire and dating, and as much as I am fascinated by the pressures on women in society (tick-tock-tick-tock) I also wanted forty-year-old Jake to be struggling with pressures of masculinity and his place in the world, as well as his role within his own family.
In 2020, it wasn’t hard for me to write these characters approaching mid-life who are still not totally clear on who they are meant to be, and how they are meant to deal with their losses and personal failings. A couple of years previously, I’d kissed goodbye to my corporate career and trotted into the darkness, naively believing I was about to become a novelist. I went on to write nine drafts of a book that would never be published. Eventually, I let that first book go. Watched it float up into the Google cloud. I was intent on giving up writing. Like a bad lover, it had taken too much from me. But in the evenings, on weekends and stealing moments on my commute into central London, Dandelion is Dead breathed herself into life. This story opened up in my mind like a wildflower.
Don’t let the title of my debut novel fool you – Dandelion is Dead is a story about life.
Just as Poppy and Jake find their way to somewhere hopeful by moving through the warping nature of grief, I believe writing this book has introduced me to the surprising beauty of my own life. Towards the close of this story, on a walk along the ragged coastline of her childhood, Poppy’s father tells her, ‘With distance the outlines change.’ I wholeheartedly agree.
I hope, so much, that you enjoy this book.
— Rosie Storey
About the book
12 March 2026
Jake has fallen head over heels for Dandelion. The only problem? Dandelion is dead.
Seven months after Dandelion’s death, Poppy resurrects her sister’s phone and finds a message from a man on a dating app. Jake.
Dandelion delighted in bad behaviour. She pushed Poppy to be daring. So, on what would have been her 40th birthday, Poppy decides to do something her sister would love, and – for one night only – she goes on a date as Dandelion.
Only when Poppy meets Jake, they have unexpected chemistry. Thrillingly hot, confusing chemistry. They become tangled in deceit while discovering something shockingly real. What happens when you fall in love with a lie?
As a precarious dare spirals somewhere altogether more unexpected, Dandelion is Dead becomes a love story, a ballad of sisterhood and an ode to bad behaviour.