‘Hell is round the corner in My Only Boy, its skilfully imagined near-future, far-right Britain all too believable. But what I admire most is the way its grand sweep is studded with small human moments: brilliantly noticed instances of the ways we want and yearn and love’ Chris Power, author of A Lonely Man
The sensational new novel from the highly-acclaimed author of Dreamland: a once-in-a-lifetime love story
It is Elle’s job to manage disasters.
But lately things have started to spin out of control.
At work, the latest catastrophe has been live-streamed to the nation. A shock election sees an extreme-right coalition storm to power. Then, on a night so hot it feels like London’s pavements are melting, she meets Ed.
Elle and Ed are not meant to be drawn to each other. Elle has only ever been attracted to women, and Ed, billed as ‘the great gay novelist of our times’, is about to release his first book. But something inexplicable sparks between them.
Can the unexpected attraction they feel last when it presents such a profound challenge to their identity? And as the country fractures and the heat rises, how will they choose between the people they’ve known themselves to be – and the people they are willing to become.
Both an unforgettable love story and a state-of-the-nation thriller, My Only Boy asks universal questions about desire, complicity, and what happens when your sense of self collapses along with the world around you.
'Only Rosa Rankin-Gee could write so wonderfully about the imminent implosion of everything we'd ever dreamed of, while two unlikely lovers find joy in a broken world. Golden' Justin Myers, author of The Glorious Dead
‘Completely original... this book charmed, provoked, and unsettled me in equal measure. Read it’ Maggie Millner, author of Couplets: A Love Story
' I can’t stop thinking about it’ Lucy Foley, author of The Hunting Party
‘I devoured this book. Rosa Rankin-Gee is a master at creating near future worlds with a simmering political back drop, pierced through with laughs and a love story that feels at once epic and beautiful and also completely universal’ Kayleigh Llewellyn, Bafta Award-winning creator of In My Skin
‘A moving, complex love story set in an all-too-plausible far-right future of intolerance, decline and precarity. Rankin-Gee has a fine ear for the dialogues of London and the humour that makes people fall in love, stay humane and make all the wrong (and right) decisions. Nuanced, alive, anxious, energetic, elegiac and thoughtful.’ Paul Holden, author of The Fraud
‘Rosa is hilarious and prescient, an incredible writer who's able to make your heart leap both with anxiety for our collective human future and anticipation for the possibilities of new love’ Nafkote Tamirat, author of The Parking Lot Attendant
‘My Only Boy is utterly compelling; it is somehow impossible to put down.… No-one else is writing quite like this - urgent, essential and against all odds, hopeful’ Laura Kay, author of Wild Things
‘With crackling prose, Rosa Rankin-Gee has crafted a novel that is both a cautionary tale about the rise of fascism, and a queer love story turned on its head. It will leave you asking: What would you do to save the ones you love? Buckle up for one hell of a ride.’ Grace Flahive, author of Palm Meridian
‘Gripping, immersive and exquisitely written, My Only Boy is one of those books that will live with you long after you’ve turned the final page’ Indyana Schneider, author of 28 Questions
'A terrifyingly poignant yet oddly heart-warming tale for our time. So richly layered I wanted to savour it, but I couldn't help but race greedily through. What a triumph!' Natasha Bell, author of This Nowhere Place
Praise for Dreamland
‘A beautiful book: thought-provoking, eerily prescient and very witty.’ Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half
'Water courses through its pages, as rising sea levels heighten inequalities, buoy populist politicians and wash away every certainty of civilisation. But there’s also the novel’s prose – its liquid grace and glinting sparkle – and the sheer irresistibility of a narrative that sweeps along with a force that feels tidal in its pull.' Observer
'She vividly captures the balance between ferocity and vulnerability as the two girls explore their burgeoning desire; one minute they’re greedy for each other, the next they’re proceeding more gingerly. Theirs is a great first love, blazing bright and furious amid the poverty and the pain, the perfect counterweight that’s needed to make the novel sing. Dreamland brings us face-to-face with much of what we’re on the threshold of losing; nevertheless, it manages to convince us that its characters have everything still to live for.' Guardian
Rosa Rankin-Gee lives between Ramsgate and South London. Her first novel The Last Kings of Sark won Shakespeare & Company’s Paris Literary Prize. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, Vogue, the Paris Review, and Esquire, among others. Her second novel, Dreamland, will be a major BBC drama in 2026.
