← All books
Our Wives Under the Sea
by Julia Armfield
Buy on Amazon
Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah may have come back wrong. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has carried part of it with her, onto dry land and into their home. To have the woman she loves back should mean a return to normal life, but Miri can feel Leah slipping from her grasp. Memories of what they had before – the jokes they shared, the films they watched, all the small things that made Leah hers – only remind Miri of what she stands to lose. Living in the same space but suddenly separate, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had might be gone.…
Recommended by
"I’ve had my eye on quite a few literary debuts this season, not least Julia Armfield’s beautifully unnerving Our Wives Under the Sea . Armfield previously published a remarkable short story collection, salt slow , which saw her shortlisted for the title of Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year here in the UK, and this book underlines her reputation for finely crafted tales of the horrifying, the strange and the contemporary gothic. Also of interest: Oklahoma poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’s first novel The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois will be published in the UK on 20 Jan after garnering rave reviews in the States; Jessamine Chan’s The School for Good Mothers , a feminist dystopia in which ‘failing’ mothers are sent to a government-run re-education unit, is very freshly released and will appeal to those who enjoy Leni Zumas’s Red Clocks or Sophie Mackintosh’s Blue Ticket ; and Sequoia Nagamatsu’s How High We Go in the Dark , which follows a large cast of characters through generations in the centuries that follow a calamitous plague. As ever, we love to hear about the books that you are personally looking forward to—or have just discovered. Don’t hesitate to get in touch via Twitter , Facebook or Instagram . We always love to hear from you. Part of our best books of 2022 series."