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3.5
Heap Earth Upon It
ByPublisher Description
A creeping story of sapphic obsession with Gothic undertones and a delicious mid-century feel, from the author of the Polari Prize-shortlisted Sunburn.
January 1965. The orphaned O'Leary siblings - Tom, Jack, Anna and Peggy - arrive in the village of Ballycrea, tight-lipped about their troubled past and desperate for a fresh start.
After being met with suspicion from most of the locals, the family are thrilled when they're taken under the wing of their well-respected neighbours, Bill and Betty Nevan, who offer them work, companionship and an opportunity to fit in.
But for one of the O'Learys, this new friendship sparks an intense attachment that makes the dynamic dangerous for all. It's difficult to bury secrets, but almost impossible to bury feelings...
Crackling with suspense, Heap Earth Upon It revisits the rural Ireland of Howarth's critically acclaimed debut and delves into claustrophobic relationships and tangled identities, leaving you wondering who to trust until the very last page. It combines the emotional intensity and slow-burn sapphic obsession of Julia Armfield's Our Wives Under the Sea and K. Patrick's Mrs S. with the unsettling gothic undertones of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and Shirley Jackson's fiction.
January 1965. The orphaned O'Leary siblings - Tom, Jack, Anna and Peggy - arrive in the village of Ballycrea, tight-lipped about their troubled past and desperate for a fresh start.
After being met with suspicion from most of the locals, the family are thrilled when they're taken under the wing of their well-respected neighbours, Bill and Betty Nevan, who offer them work, companionship and an opportunity to fit in.
But for one of the O'Learys, this new friendship sparks an intense attachment that makes the dynamic dangerous for all. It's difficult to bury secrets, but almost impossible to bury feelings...
Crackling with suspense, Heap Earth Upon It revisits the rural Ireland of Howarth's critically acclaimed debut and delves into claustrophobic relationships and tangled identities, leaving you wondering who to trust until the very last page. It combines the emotional intensity and slow-burn sapphic obsession of Julia Armfield's Our Wives Under the Sea and K. Patrick's Mrs S. with the unsettling gothic undertones of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and Shirley Jackson's fiction.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesHeap Earth Upon It Reviews
3.5
“how deeply unsettling and hauting this book is
i felt inhabited by ballycrea and its cold and its fog, how strange and how incredibly disturbing to be immersed so completely into somebody's thoughts.
in many ways i see myself in each of them, i feel so sorry for us”
“An amazing second novel from the same author as Sunburn - it still carries that sapphic yearning but in a more gothic, disturbing atmosphere.
Set amongst a foggy, wintery rural Ireland we follow the O’Leary siblings as they’re fleeing their old lives and moving to a new town, Ballycrea. The chapter structure follows each of the adult siblings and Betty as the events from their arrival to Ballycrea to the end of their stories as the reader knows.
I loved the characters and atmosphere that was created, it drew you in straight away and I loved finding out their personalities and snippets what happened and who they’re all talking to that led to them leaving their old life behind. The almost breaking of the fourth wall during Betty’s chapters involved the reader in finding out what happened to the O’Leary family which was really well placed in between Tom, Jack and Anna’s chapters. They’re all unreliable narrators and I LOVED IT I still don’t know exactly what happened at the end
Anna my complex female character I love you - she just needs someone on her level😔”
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