India, July 3 -- It's a "tricky age" in Crossmore, Northern Ireland. There's not much to do and what there is to do is pretty mundane. The uneventfulness of life in this part of the world is the backdrop of Brighton-based Chloe Michelle Howarth's debut novel Sunburn.

Spanning a period from 1989 to 1995, this coming-of-age story of a group of teenagers in their last years of secondary school is also a tale of same-sex love in a traditional society; one where there are consequences if you tread a romantic path that doesn't align with heteronormative expectations. The setting's hyperlocal-ness also signals that the principal characters - Lucy Nolan and Susannah O'Shea - can't escape the reality that their business is everyone's business.

I...