Thirst Trap

A Novel

Hardcover
$28.00 US
| $37.99 CAN
On sale Nov 04, 2025 | 288 Pages | 9798217088997

See Additional Formats
A bitingly funny novel about your late 20s as you stare down 30—when do you tire of morning hangovers, days of dead-end entry-level jobs, and late nights at bars? This friend group is about to find out.

Sometimes friends hold you together.
Sometimes they’re why you’re falling apart.

Harley, Róise, and Maggie have been friends for ages. After meeting in primary school years ago, the women are still together, spending their nights on the sticky dancefloors of Belfast’s grungiest pubs. Each woman is navigating her own tangle of entry-level jobs, messy romantic entanglements, and late nights, but they always find their way back to each other, and to the ramshackle house they share. And amidst the familiar chaos, the three are still grieving their fourth housemate, whose room remains untouched, their last big fight hanging heavily over their heads.

The girls’ house has witnessed the highs and lows of their roaring twenties—raucous parties, surprising (and sometimes regrettable) hook-ups, and hellish hangovers. But as they approach thirty, their home begins to crumble around them and the fault lines in their group become harder to ignore. In the wreckage, they must decide if their friendship will survive into a new decade—or if growing up sometimes means letting go.

Brimming with heart and humor, Thirst Trap is an exuberant ode to friendship, to not having it all figured out, and to ordering just one more round before heading home.
© courtesy of the author
Gráinne O’Hare is a writer from Belfast based in Newcastle upon Tyne. She received a Northern Debut Award for Fiction from New Writing North, and was awarded funding by the Arts Council for the development and completion of her first novel. She has also been shortlisted for the Francis MacManus Short Story Competition and the Bridport Prize, and came in the top three of the Benedict Kiely Short Story Competition. She is media sub-editor of Criticks reviews for the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, and has a PhD on eighteenth-century women's life-writing from Newcastle University. View titles by Gráinne O'Hare

About

A bitingly funny novel about your late 20s as you stare down 30—when do you tire of morning hangovers, days of dead-end entry-level jobs, and late nights at bars? This friend group is about to find out.

Sometimes friends hold you together.
Sometimes they’re why you’re falling apart.

Harley, Róise, and Maggie have been friends for ages. After meeting in primary school years ago, the women are still together, spending their nights on the sticky dancefloors of Belfast’s grungiest pubs. Each woman is navigating her own tangle of entry-level jobs, messy romantic entanglements, and late nights, but they always find their way back to each other, and to the ramshackle house they share. And amidst the familiar chaos, the three are still grieving their fourth housemate, whose room remains untouched, their last big fight hanging heavily over their heads.

The girls’ house has witnessed the highs and lows of their roaring twenties—raucous parties, surprising (and sometimes regrettable) hook-ups, and hellish hangovers. But as they approach thirty, their home begins to crumble around them and the fault lines in their group become harder to ignore. In the wreckage, they must decide if their friendship will survive into a new decade—or if growing up sometimes means letting go.

Brimming with heart and humor, Thirst Trap is an exuberant ode to friendship, to not having it all figured out, and to ordering just one more round before heading home.

Author

© courtesy of the author
Gráinne O’Hare is a writer from Belfast based in Newcastle upon Tyne. She received a Northern Debut Award for Fiction from New Writing North, and was awarded funding by the Arts Council for the development and completion of her first novel. She has also been shortlisted for the Francis MacManus Short Story Competition and the Bridport Prize, and came in the top three of the Benedict Kiely Short Story Competition. She is media sub-editor of Criticks reviews for the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, and has a PhD on eighteenth-century women's life-writing from Newcastle University. View titles by Gráinne O'Hare
  • More Websites from
    Penguin Random House
  • Common Reads
  • Library Marketing