Sunburn is a fantastic debut from a new author. A fresh coming-of-age tale set in the early 90s, it follows the main character Lucy as she grows up in a small village in rural Ireland.

As the novel begins, Lucy is content in her village, with the same people at school, on the same farm, with the same friends. Her fate of marrying her best friend Martin and settling down seemingly decided for her. However, she can’t avoid the growing feelings she has for her friend Susannah. Caught between unmoving conservatism and the possibilities which Susannah offers her, Lucy’s certainties of her future begin to crumble.

It appears that motherhood is the nearest thing to an inherited career that I can hope for

The heart of the novel is the intricacies of female relationships; those between mother and daughter, and with her friends. The dynamic within her friendship group changes as Lucy and Susannah’s relationship intensifies, putting pressure on friendships assumed unending.

Without the girls, I don’t know who I would be. They are a very big part of who I am. All my life, they have been laying a beautiful path for me, and I am so grateful for it.

As Lucy becomes more confident in herself, her relationship with her mother sours, leading her to have to make decisions that she dreads. Susannah also has a strained relationship with her mother, who is emotionally neglectful and has a reputation in the village.

I am afraid that we might all be our mothers’ daughters

The novel also focuses on the journey of becoming comfortable in yourself. And, more importantly, the confidence and courage that truly being yourself requires.

I think soon I will like myself all the way through, and I won’t mind what people think of me

With an engaging plot and characters, and wonderfully written, Sunburn is a joy to read. I encourage anyone who’s looking for a new queer coming-of-age tale to pick this one up!

Well written book on sensitive topics handled with care. It was just a good story and I will recommend it even to people who its not written for. Enlightening!

Set in rural Ireland in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s, Sunburn follows Lucy, assumed to be on the road to marriage and kids with her neighbour and best friend, Martin.
Lucy is fifteen in 1989, one of a group of girls tightly bound by friendship, fraught with all the worries and pitfalls of adolescence. She desperately needs to fit in, to ignore the troubling feelings she has for Susannah while daring to hope those feelings are requited. By the end of the summer it’s clear that they are but while Susannah wants their love made public Lucy is terrified of coming out. Then something happens which forces her to make a decision one way or the other.
Lucy tells us her story, full of the passion of first love and the terror of being discovered in a town alert to any non-conformity and judgemental of it. Howarth’s depiction of claustrophobic village life where everyone knows everyone else’s business is convincing. The small kindnesses doled out to Susannah, emotionally and physically neglected by her mother, are balanced by the closed mindedness of Lucy’s friends and family. Faced with the possibility of ostracism, her solution is both painful and selfish, although perhaps understandable. Howarth’s novel is not without flaws – I found it overlong and a little florid at times – but overall, it’s an enjoyable coming-of-age story which left me hoping things were easier these days for the Lucys of this world.