The hotly-anticipated third novel from the author of Sunburn, which sold over 100,000 copies and was shortlisted for the Nero Book Award, the British Book Awards and the Polari Prize.

OVERDRIVE
by Chloe Michelle Howarth
Penguin Michael Joseph, June 2027
(via Northbank Talent Management)

Meadhbh has just moved to London from rural Ireland with her best friend, Saoirse.
Aly lives off her parents’ wealth and is studying for yet another master’s degree.

They meet by chance at a party and fall instantly and madly in love, spending a lustful summer driving around London in Aly’s vintage Capri, playing at domesticity. They expect the spell between them to break, but instead fall deeper into each other’s worlds, eventually swapping city life for rural Ireland with two babies in tow. But when the recession comes down hard, so do the illusions they’ve built around themselves. Will their love story survive the crash? 

Told through their alternating perspectives, this tender and addictive novel is for fans of Coco Mellor’s Cleopatra and Frankenstein and Nicola Dinan’s Bellies.

Chloe Michelle Howarth was born in July 1996. She grew up in the West Cork countryside, which has served as an inspiration for her writing. She attended university at IADT in Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, where she studied English, Media and Cultural Studies. Chloe currently lives in Brighton. Her debut novel, Sunburn, was shortlisted for the 2024 Polari First Book Prize, the 2024 Book of the Year: Discover Award at the British Book Awards and the 2023 Nero Book Award for Debut Fiction and longlisted for the 2024 Diverse Book Awards.