Spotlight & Giveaway: Dandelion is Dead by Rosie Storey

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Rosie Storey to HJ!

Hi Rosie and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Dandelion is Dead!

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Seven months after her dazzling older sister Dandelion’s death, Poppy starts talking to a man on Dandelion’s dating app. On what would have been Dandelion’s 40th birthday, she decides to meet him—a daring, reckless move her sister would have loved. Poppy has a boyfriend at home and promises herself it will be just one night, but sparks fly, and soon she and Jake are dating. All the while, she’s pretending to be Dandelion. What happens when you fall in love with a lie?
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

Love, Poppy understood, wasn’t passion, romance, laughter, or
lust. It wasn’t happiness, or Jake, or other people’s relationships on
social media, or at the cinema. Love meant Not Being Alone and
it didn’t have to feel nice every minute of the day, or most of the
day, for Poppy to have to want it. Love wasn’t red or pink or chocolate
or heart-shaped. Love could be boring and was, ultimately,
uncertain. Love led to babies, which kept things turning. Love was
someone to get annoyed with and cook for and hide from and hide
with and to talk to about TV. Love was having someone to snuggle,
spoon, grate, grind. Love was having someone who loved you back
and who was there for you when everyone died, left, got sick. Love
was having someone to like you, still, when you’d been a bad person.
Love was having someone to upset you and irritate you and look
after and care for and think of as a big fat distraction from the
inevitability of the total obliteration of everyone in the world and
the actual world itself.
Poppy had no clue what love was truly, or exactly, but she was
climbing up its branches – with intention. She was moving through its ranks.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• This book used to be called Eliza is Dead. The sisters were called Eliza and Polly, not Dandelion and Poppy. After many agent rejections I decided I needed a fresh burst of energy and so I changed the sisters’ names!
• I also changed the font of the book, this seems like a small thing, but it really helped me feel invigorated.

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

Poppy is attracted to Jake because she really fancies him, it’s good old fashioned chemistry. He also makes her laugh, she has a boyfriend at home who isn’t funny at all.
Jake also feels bowled over by the chemistry. He says when he’s with Poppy it feels as if he’s “breathing the purest type of air”. They are also united by grief. They are both on a journey to be better people and lead truer lives.

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

Jake was very fun to write, especially when he’s being a silly man. Things are going badly for him at one point and he drinks too much and stays up too late. Later that day he gets into a fight with his ex wife’s new (much younger, fitter) boyfriend. This was a comedic scene to write! It had me giggling.

Readers should read this book….

if they are fans of Dolly Alderton, Nora Ephron, Coco Mellors , or Meg Mason and enjoy stories about the humour and sorrow of every day life.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I recently started writing my second book. More love, lust, life and a little bad behaviour…
 
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: A print copy DANDELION IS DEAD by Rosie Storey

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: What does love mean to you?

Book Info:

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 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?
 
 

Meet the Author:

Rosie Storey is an author and writing coach based in East London. She holds a Masters in Creative Writing and her debut novel, Dandelion is Dead, will be published by Berkley in January 2026. Rosie writes about the intricacies of relationships, the strange poetry of everyday life and the moments when love, humour and heartache collide.