An astonishing debut about love, loss, and learning to live again.
Seventeen-year-old Zoe Hart is dying. In seven and a half minutes, her heart will stop beating and paramedics will find her and her sister at the scene of a car crash.
Right now, though, Zoe is in a diner. Schrödinger's Diner to be exact. A place that serves souls who are neither dead nor alive. Zoe is handed a menu with seven dishes, each one with the power to take her back in time. The deal is simple: undo her greatest regret before her final dish is served, and Zoe gets to live. Fail, however, and the fog beyond the diner awaits.
The choice seems obvious. Who wouldn't want a taste at a second chance? But there's no telling what memories the menu holds. And some secrets Zoe has spent a lifetime trying to forget.
You’ve Found Oliver meets They Both Die at the End in a stunning debut about facing your past to have a shot at a future.
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“The heart-wrenching, unmissable YA debut from Kate Emilie”
Kate Emilie is an American writer whose small-town Florida upbringing inspired much of the setting in her debut novel. Kate has an MA in Writing for Young People from Bath Spa University, has completed the Curtis Brown Creative 'Writing Your Novel' course, and was a Faber Academy mentee. She lives outside London with her family and fluffy cat.
In addition to winning Friday Night Live at the 2025 London Festival of Writing, Seven Dishes Before Forever (formally Seven Dishes to Fall in Love) was a 2025 Frankfurt Bookfair hotlist title, it was shortlisted for the 2025 Idea Idol competition, named a readers' favourite and longlisted for the 2025 WriteMentor Awards, reached the Top 100 in the 2025 Bath Novel Awards, and it reached Top 50 in the New2TheScene Winter and Summer Novel competitions. It was also a 2025 Frankfurt Book Fair hotlist title.