Set against the backdrop of Belfast’s nightlife, Gráinne O’Hare’s debut novel Thirst Trap offers an unflinching exploration of millennial friendships, grief, and the messy pursuit of adulthood. The novel, published by Pan Macmillan, follows three women navigating the emotional and existential chaos of their late twenties, still reeling from the death of a close friend.
At the center of Thirst Trap are Maggie, Roise, and Harley, housemates grappling with the loss of their friend Lydia, who died just before turning 30. A year later, they remain in the same decaying flat, surrounded by lingering reminders of Lydia — from her pet turtle to the unused cosmetics in the bathroom. Their coping mechanisms are as turbulent as their emotions, ranging from casual sex and substance use to dysfunctional relationships.
O’Hare, 32, said the idea for the novel evolved alongside her own experiences. “It started out a bit disconnected and listless,” she recalled in an interview, “and then as I grew up, it grew up alongside me.” What began as a story of chaotic nights and bad hangovers became, over time, a deeper exploration of friendship, loss, and the existential shift that comes with entering a new decade.
The novel is rich with vivid, often jarring imagery. O’Hare’s prose has drawn praise for its visceral quality, describing moments of excess and emotional volatility in sharp, sensory detail. One passage likens taking MDMA to “glass shards dissolv[ing] in the bridge of your nose.” Elsewhere, a discarded condom is described as “the abandoned hide of a shedding reptile,” and vomiting in a nightclub transforms false eyelashes into “strange black caterpillars.”
Despite the intensity of her writing, O’Hare herself is soft-spoken. “I actually didn’t really go out until I was about 22,” she admitted. Her party years came later, catalyzed by her time as a master’s student in Belfast. The novel was largely written after she moved to Newcastle to pursue a PhD focused on 18th-century women’s writing. Feeling homesick, she began to write about Belfast, shaping what would become Thirst Trap over the next seven years.
O’Hare says turning 30 — a milestone often surrounded by cultural expectations and myths — is a central theme. “There are so many losses and changes that you go through,” she said. “I felt a huge sense of grief when I stopped living with my best friend after five years. I was heartbroken.”
Lydia’s death in the novel symbolizes this kind of emotional rupture. Though physically absent, Lydia remains omnipresent in the lives of her friends — appearing in old photos, leaving behind unpaid debts, and occupying emotional space in the group. “That is part of grief,” O’Hare said. “It’s not like you just have this one emotional blowout after a death and then it’s a healing process that’s completely straightforward and linear.”
In addition to grief, the novel also addresses issues like disordered eating and sexual agency. One scene describes an uncomfortable sexual encounter with dark humor and raw realism. “I wanted that bit to reflect the kind of conversations you have with your friends afterwards,” O’Hare said. “Even if it was a bad experience, it becomes a funny story — it brings a sense of agency back to it.”
Thirst Trap also portrays a generation grappling with economic instability and delayed adulthood. The characters, though in their thirties, still live like students — stuck in shared housing, plagued by financial insecurity, and weighed down by the cost-of-living crisis. “People are living in their overdrafts,” O’Hare noted. “And it’s for reasons that are very out of their control.”
The novel’s distinctly Irish setting is another key feature. O’Hare draws heavily on the vernacular of Belfast, referencing local landmarks and cultural quirks, from defunct nightclubs to Irish slang. “It just comes naturally to me when I’m writing dialogue,” she said. One of the characters bears the Irish name Roise (pronounced Row-shuh), a decision O’Hare made deliberately. “It was important to me that there was at least one character with an Irish name.”
O’Hare is among a growing group of Irish writers gaining prominence in contemporary fiction. She cites Aimée Walsh’s Exile and Lucy Caldwell’s These Days as recent inspirations, along with the broader rise of Irish literature in the wake of Sally Rooney’s international success. “They’ve made me feel a bit more confident,” she said, “about being able to write about my little corner of the world.”
Now based in Newcastle, where she lives with her partner, O’Hare says she still misses Belfast — a city that is as much a character in Thirst Trap as the women who inhabit it. As her novel continues to resonate with readers, O’Hare has established herself as a compelling new voice chronicling the complexities of millennial life with grit, empathy, and dark wit.
