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Quercus imprint riverrun is publishing Louise O'Neill's third novel, Almost Love, in March 2018.
The book, the first in a "significant" two book deal announced at the end of 2015, will be "a deeply felt exploration of how love or ‘love’ can become an act of self-sabotage, especially for women".
Senior commissioning editor Niamh Mulvey said at the time that O'Neill's next two books would "mark something of a departure" for the author, moving on from YA.
Almost Love however will be "full of [O’Neill’s] trademark intensity", according to the publisher, as "another fierce and unapologetically honest novel".
At the centre of the novel is Sarah who falls hard for a man 20 years her senior, leaving her on the verge of losing her job. "But Sarah can't help it," reads the book's blurb. "She is addicted to being desired by Matthew. And love is supposed to hurt. Isn't it?"
The novel has already been endorsed by author Marian Keyes who described it as "a bold, uncompromising depiction of obsessive love which reshapes the template for the female protagonist".
O’Neill is the author behind novels Only Ever Yours and Asking for It - the respective winners of Newcomer of the Year at the Irish Book Awards and the Bookseller YA Book Prize and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2015 - sparking conversations about body image and consent. Film/TV rights have been optioned on both books.
Her YA reimagining of "The Little Mermaid", The Surface Breaks will meanwhile be published later in 2018 by Scholastic.