Gráinne O'Hare Thirst Trap

Maggie, Harley, and Róise have spent their twenties careering around the bars of Belfast with riotous abandon, the wine cheap and the memories priceless. However, the three of them used to be four; and now, one year on from a tragic accident, Maggie, Harley, and Róise are still shaken by the sudden death of their best friend Lydia. Struggling to process their loss and afraid to let go of the home and the life they shared together, the three women each find the nights becoming wilder and the days more full of regret. Maggie's anxiety has taken a turn for the worse since the death of her friend, and her ongoing situationship with an unreliable, emotionally unavailable woman plunges her further into uncertainty. Róise embarks on a slow, simmering flirtation with a work colleague, tempted but fearful at the idea that it could become more. And between blackout drinking and one-night-stands with strangers, Harley fills her time working as a hotel receptionist, poorly re-learning to play the piano, and sexually obsessing over their landlord. As Maggie, Harley, and Róise spiral into chaos, the memory of their last, worst fight with Lydia hangs heavy and unspoken over their heads. Their house is crumbling around them and the city that raised them seems full of ghosts, as the three of them try to piece themselves back together. Thirst Trap is a brilliant and beautiful page turner of a novel; a bittersweet, bitingly funny, at times painfully relatable story about the friendships that endure through the very best and the very worst of times.