Sunburn

Chloe Michelle Howarth

A literary coming-of-age novel set in rural 1990s Ireland, following teenage Lucy as a secret, all-consuming love for her best friend Susannah collides with the conventional future she's expected to choose with her childhood friend Martin. Told over several years of Lucy's adolescence and early adulthood, it's a quiet, interior story about shame, religious guilt, and the cost of hiding who you are in a small, conservative community. Reviewers compare its intensity and prose style to Sally Rooney's work.