Heap Earth Upon It

by Chloe Michelle Howarth

Genres: General Fiction; Family Life; Siblings; Small Town & Rural; LGBT & Pride; LGBT Lesbian

Synopsis

Chloe Michelle Howarth, author of the bestselling novel Sunburn, offers a new take on sapphic obsession, for fans of All Our Wives Under the Sea, Mrs. S, Biography of X, and Organ Meats.

With additional, exclusive content inside.

In this follow up to the award winning Sunburn, a claustrophobic tale of obsession, family, and identity…

In January, 1965, the growing town of Ballycrea has four new residents.

The O’Leary siblings arrive in their new village under suspicious circumstances. Desperate to make a new start and leave their troubled life behind, the O'Learys offer few, contradicting details about their past.

As they slowly settle in to town, the siblings are taken under the wing of Betty and Bill Nevan, a wealthy couple in their forties who have always wanted children. However, as one O’Leary sister grows close to Betty, lines are crossed and their intense relationship becomes difficult to define. All the while, the O’Leary’s buried secrets keep bubbling up, threatening to ruin their new future. 

Gothic, lush, and suspenseful, Chloe Michelle Howarth spins a tangled web that leaves you wondering who to trust until the very last page.

Release date: February 3, 2026

Publisher: Melville House

Print pages: 288

Sample

JACK

Didn’t they all tell me that this would come with time? Healing. Things getting lighter. Things meaning less. I thought it was just something people were saying to fill silences. But it appears that they were right. The trouble is running off me. I am moving on. Such quare liberation.

While the others sleep, I step out of the house to take in the last of Kilmarra. Knowing without really understanding that in the morning we will leave the place we come from and
never come back again. Big bloodied sky, yellow clouds hanging in the thick air. The bare winter trees reach up to be touched by lightning. I do the same. I wait for the weather to break over me. For the rumble of thunder. For God to make Himself known to me. But when the sky opens, no god or heaven is there. Only miles of navy dark.

And I realise that over the last year, I’ve been so focused on the darkness of my skies that I’ve let the rest of the world pass me by. I wonder have the others noticed this? I wonder have they seen the gloomy fire that cuts up my horizon, and know how gladly I have let it blaze?

I go back inside to start loading up the cart. To wake the rest of them. Leaving the house for the last time, my mind turns away from you, and to the whole year that has passed. A year of things left unsaid, unacknowledged. As though their happening didn’t ruin me.