Heap Earth Upon It

PRAISE FOR Sunburn (2025)
A New Atlantic Indie Bookseller Association Bestseller
A Pacific Northwest Indie Bookseller Association Bestseller
A Vancouver Sun’s International Indie Bestseller
A JULY 2025 INDIE NEXT PICK

“Tackling topics of queer identity, teenage angst, and religious guilt, this romantic novel burns with the intensity and yearning of first love.” — Harper’s Bazaar

“Beautifully written … it’s enchanting.” —Publishers Weekly

“Absolutely gripping . . . A romantic, funny, and painful exploration of the cost of being true to yourself.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A poetic victory, fueled by intense, penetrating prose.” —Foreword Reviews, STARRED REVIEW


PRAISE FOR HEAP EARTH UPON IT, UK EDITION:
“I lost myself in Chloe Michelle Howarth’s strange and startling second novel. It’s a deeply affecting tapestry of gothic landscapes and virtuosic, character driven prose. As it haunted me, Heap Earth Upon It will haunt you too.” —Lucy Rose, author of The Lamb

“Airless and gripping, Heap Earth Upon It perfectly captures what it’s like to live under the weight of secrets. The family’s yearning for a simpler future is expertly balanced with the darkness of their past. A devastating mix of hope and heartbreak, from one of Ireland’s most exciting queer voices.” —Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin, author of Ordinary Saints

“Assured, poignant and beautiful. Howarth writes poetically about loss and love – Anna’s thunderbolt moment when she first sees Betty singing at a party is particularly affecting – within an overhanging, unsettling Rebecca-esque tension. There is a cracking pace, too, helped by concise chapters, each of which is in first person from the perspective of one of the three elder O’Learys or Betty – a quartet of very unreliable narrators.” —Tom Tivnan, The Bookseller

“A tense and claustrophobic novel with gothic atmosphere that seeps into your bones like fog. It’s a fascinating look at mid-century rural Irish life, and a brutal exploration of the corrosive impact of shame and secrecy. Chloe Michelle Howarth knows her sapphic yearning!” —Rachel Dawson, author of Neon Roses

“Heap Earth Upon It is the perfect slow burn, an absorbing, multifaceted and uneasy novel, with inscrutable characters who shed layers until their fierce, flawed centres are revealed. Set in a 1960s rural Ireland that feels almost timeless, Howarth takes the ‘a stranger comes to town’ trope and weaves a mesmerising, shimmering web with it, deftly building and breaking tensions with a glance across a room, or a knock on a door. I was drawn in by the characters’ quiet watchfulness and insularity, and the strong sense of place, but I was held captive by their rich interiorities, in particular Anna’s simmering, swooning obsession that I felt must surely, soon, boil over… A triumph of a second novel.” —Emma van Straaten, author of This Immaculate Body