Beautifully written allegory about estrangement after trauma. I loved the fascinating details about the mysteries of the deep sea.

Horrific, beautiful, tender and purely exhilarating. I'm absolutely astonished that this is a debut.

"The deep sea is a haunted house: a place in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness. Unstill, is the word Leah uses, tilting her head to the side as if in answer to some sound though the evening is quiet - dry hum of the road outside the window and little to draw the ear besides."

My Rating: 5/5 stars

Ever since her 2019 short-story collection Salt Slow captured my heart and imagination, I’ve been eagerly anticipating whatever Julia Armfield would bring us next. When I learned that her next release would be her debut literary horror novel, featuring themes of the deep ocean, grief, loss, and an F-F-relationship, it quickly moved to the top of my most-anticipated-list.
With such high expectations, I was setting myself up for disappointment, right? Wrong! Our Wives Under the Sea is a phenomenal gem that lived up to all its promises.

When marine-biologist Leah embarked on her latest deep-sea research mission, neither she nor her wife Miri could have anticipated the way their lives are about to change for good. When a technical malfunction leaves the submarine stranded on the ocean floor in complete radio silence, Miri knows she has lost her beloved wife for good. Her euphoria over an unlikely rescue mission that returns the crew to the shallows safely, soon turns to dread, as she realises that the woman who resurfaced isn’t the Leah she knew before. Something inside her has changed and whatever she encountered in those abyssal depths has nestled itself deep inside her, and accompanied her in her return to the surface.
Through Miri’s eyes, intercut with journal-entries from Leah’s time below, we follow the unravelling of their relationship in the aftermath of an event that cut a rift through both of their lives.

Our Wives Under the Sea is quite frankly achingly close to being my perfect book. Not only does it combine all of my favourite elements (a metaphor of deep-sea biology, hauntings, themes of grief, loss, parental illness, an F-F-relationship that’s past the first-love stage, and so much more), it does so subtly, cohesively and sticks its landing.
Besides the signature breath-taking prose and striking talent for making the familiar feel deeply alien and unsettling that Armfield has shown in her previous work, what sets this book apart to me it its sense of depth and layering. Mirroring the descent through the oceanic layers that loosely structure the novel, I found myself diving deeper into this story with every page. In true fabulist-fashion, much is left unspoken, and its up to the reader how far they want to explore. It’s a creepy tale of a woman changed by the sea. It’s also an elegy on loss in all its different forms, about co-dependency, about growing apart after an lifechanging experience you can never completely share, and about traveling into the dark to return changed.

Throughout much of it I was reminded of my experience reading (and watching the Netflix-adaptation of) Annihilation. Both conveyed the subliminal dread of the aforementioned themes perfectly, and both got deeply under my skin because of it. In some sense this was the lovechild of Annihilation’s subverbal dread, and Kirsty Logan’s oceanic prose. Coming from me, that’s about the biggest compliment a debut author can get.

Many thanks to Picador and the author for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to the publishers, and to Netgalley, for an e-ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Miri is grieving a relationship whilst still actively trying to mend it. Her wife Leah has returned from a deep-sea expedition completely changed. The story is told in the present day by Miri, whilst Leah focuses on how she got her love for the sea, and what happened on her last submarine mission.
On the face of it, the premise of this book wants you to think it is about loss, the determination of love in dire situations - but it is so much more than that.
It is gritty whilst also being about the tiny-ness and the routine of daily life.
It is gory and unsettling from the offset.
There is a mystery running throughout the two timelines that completely drew me in as soon as I met these two women.
Adored this.

Our Wives Under the Sea immediately drew me in with its intricate synopsis and its beautiful cover it is sure to grab attention upon its release.

It is a beautiful exploration of the deep ocean, of grieving a relationship while still in it, and the tooth aching loss of a parent - even if that loss is no longer recent. It also carries a understated oddness that I have a hard time pointing out even after finishing it.
I loved the dual POV of Leah and Miri and their relationship which we seem to be exploring backwards.
However I think I was exception more of a creepy atmosphere - I was expecting an alienness and what I found instead was a soft change - like that of the changing outline of a beach.

The shifts in POV and time were smooth however I felt like I kept waiting for something more.
Overall a very pleasant read, with a tiny pinch of something otherworldly, and a whole lot of introspection.
Additionally the queer rep felt genuine and the writing was beautiful.

An outstanding debut novel from Julia Armfield, author of salt slow, a short story collection that I also adored. Our Wives Under the Sea is deeply unsettling, quietly intense book about Miri and Leah, who has just returned after a submarine investigation went wrong. Leah may never be the same again, as Miri soon learns, and what occurs from this point jumps forwards and backwards in time, painting a picture of a relationship full of love, and its difficult end. I would 100% recommend this.

2.5 rounded down

Having heard the hype surrounding Armfield's debut - Salt Slow - and read some promising early reviews of this I was curious to try out her first novel.

The story follows Miri, a young woman whose wife Leah has returned from a deep sea submarine mission a shell of her former self. Alternating chapters between Miri and Leah give us an insight into how Miri's life has changed by this event in the present day, with Leah's chapters detailing the expedition.

I thought this started off promisingly but failed to hold my interest for the duration of the novel as a whole. I thought the writing was great but the plot felt a bit overstretched and like it'd have worked better as a short story.

A strangely compelling story, which I'm not entirely sure I enjoyed but the writing was excellent and it will stick with me for. a while.
Written alternately by Miri and Leah, the chapters zigzag backwards and forwards between Leah's trip into the depths of the ocean on a deep sea exploration vessel and her return to the flat she shares with Miri as seen from Miri's perspective. Leah's chapters are confined by the small submersible she is in along with two colleagues, and Miri chapters are confined largely to the flat the pair of them share. Leah is trapped with two work mates and Miri is trapped with Leah. Both places are disturbed by alien noises - in the case of the flat by the television upstairs that is on day and night and on the submersible by the voice that is heard.
Miri is uneasy at Leah's return. She knows something is not right, despite Leah's reassurances that all will be well. She fights the feeling but in the end she has has to accept the best thing for Leah is to let her go. Such is her love for her wife.
The writing is interesting and sensitive. As Leah changes there is a touch of horror and a touch of fantasy and the whole story is atmospheric and moving. Strange, unsettling and memorable.
With thanks to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for an arc.

I really enjoyed Julia Armfield's short story collection 'Salt Slow', especially her writing, which was always exceptional and a brilliant mix of playfulness and fantastic imagery.

'Our Wives...' takes this and goes further, into what I found was a beautiful and haunting book about love, trauma and relationships. But that doesn't do this book justice- it plays with small fantastical details that grow more twisted and gruesome and shimmering as the book continues.

We watch as the married couple Leah and Miri take it in turns to tell their stories about Leah's deep sea work, and an incident that happened, leaving Leah a changed woman, who spends the day silent and running up the water bill as she sits in the bath endlessly.

Miri's difficulty in coping with everything that is going on soon transforms into a crystal-clear understanding of what must be done, which the book teases playfully by telling you to expect that, as with many stories, the ending you expect might well be coming.

I found this so subtly brilliant and clever that I did not want it to end- it was tender, silly, heartfelt and tragic, but never stopped being brilliant.

I received an advanced copy of this from NetGalley and Picador in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars

When a three week deep-sea mission turns into six months, Miri believes her wife, Leah, will never come home. And she’s partially right.

Only a month after her return, Miri knows that the person who returns is not the woman she married. Their rituals change; they sleep in separate bedrooms; Leah hardly speaks; without reason, she starts to bleed from her nose, teeth, and pores. With no answers and no one to confide in, Miri feels trapped, grasping for any reaction from her spouse to prove she’s still the person she fell in love with. But as Leah continues to degenerate, it becomes incumbent on Miri to learn what happened in that vessel and what, if anything, can be done to bring Leah back.

In rotating chapters, Miri’s continued exasperation is counterposed against Leah’s recounting of the life-altering event as she and her team were abandoned in the ocean depths. I loved the ominous chapter headings – “Midnight Zone”, “Abyssal Zone” – framing the narrative itself like a deep-sea dive that gradually unravelled the truth of Leah’s voyage and her resulting transformation. The novel also gives insight through form into the personalities and state of mind of the main characters (Miri’s chapters more drawn out and distraught, Leah’s concise and more straightforwardly observational), interspersing educational tidbits about critical scientific discoveries and aquatic life that I thought were quite interesting.

Although it’s hard to deny Our Wives is beautifully written and a skillful portrayal of human experiences, it felt for me at times that the story would linger too long on Miri’s domestic claustrophobia as she attempts to reconcile the changes she observes in her spouse. This is done without much forward momentum, often compelling me to move quickly through Miri’s chapters just to search for more substance in Leah’s. Though I appreciate what the author was going for by focusing so heavily on Miri’s observations, I don’t feel like the content of her perspective – apart from the beautiful prose in which it was conveyed – really made for captivating reading.

All in all, I’m still very glad to have given this a read and offer kudos to the author for this magnificently structured and gorgeously written novel.

My thanks to Picador and NetGalley for this delightfully haunting read!

This is one of those books that the cover matches perfectly the actual vibes of the story. Our Wives Under the Sea does atmosphere really, really well - its sad, romantic tone is interwoven with magical elements and make this such a beautiful read. It tells the story of Leah, a marine biologist whose research expedition goes awry and she finds herself at the bottom of the ocean with two crewmates, no power and no idea if they will come out of this alive. Months later, Miri is trying to cope with the Leah that is returned to her, alive but not the Leah she remembers.

This was a quielty heartbreaking story about grief and letting go. I adore magical realism which revolves around water themes, so this was truly a pleasure to read. The only reason why this isn't a 5-star read is that I needed a little bit more, this was a little bit too quiet for me, and I think I will forget about this book very soon, even if at the moment of reading it, it did touch my heart.

Stunning and strange tale that is hard to explain or absorb but that is very striking in its obscurity.

A married couple are divided when one of them returns from an extended undersea trip that went wrong, with strange things happening at the bottom of the ocean.

On her return she is changed, and her wife increasingly cannot cope with the situation as it develops in the weirdest ways.

Full of lost love and acceptance of things we don’t understand, the story continues to a vanishing point which is very bizarre.

One week to go until "Our Wives Under the Sea", is published and I'm no more ready to write a coherent review than I was when I was so completely stunned by this in November. I had a pretty intense reading experience, starting it alone in Paris, getting lost to the city around me, and then finishing it in the strange early days of my covid quarantine, but it didn't matter what was going on, I was completely submerged in this story about two women, Miri and Leah, and the vast, terrifying expanse of the ocean.

Miri is elated when her wife Leah finally returns from a months long subterranean research trip, after assuming she had gone missing after getting next to no news or support from the centre Leah works for. When Leah comes back, however, simply put she comes back wrong. It reminded me of countless stories where a husband returns to his wife changed and traumatised from a war or from space, the spouse turned into a stranger, from an unknowable journey to the far reaches of the earth and human experience. It reminded me so much of the beginning of The Time Travellers Wife, "why have you gone where I cannot follow?".

In Miri's chapters we see a woman trying desperately to hang onto Leah who has not only changed completely in temperament but is exhibiting strange behaviours and fixations around water, drinking it with salt and lying silently for hours in the bath. In Leah's, we are only ever in the past, in the time before and during the trip.

It is a mystery at it's heart, but by the time we find out what happened to Leah it seems as though that was never completely the point. We don't get the answers we might have hoped for, but in a way that made me love it even more. I knew I loved this fierce, strange, otherworldly from the first pages - despite it being uniquely horrifying for me with an aversion to body horror and fear of fish! It's definitely for the reader who wants vibes more than a galloping plot, but it is so gorgeous and original and horrible that I was very happy to lean into that. Out 3rd March from the author of the fantastic Salt Slow.

This is an absorbing novel, stunningly written, with prose that flows like water. It's lyrical, haunting and deeply moving. A bone chilling mystery alongside a beautiful depiction of the devastation of love lost. This is a book that stirs the emotions and lingers long after the last page is turned.

I wanted to read Our Wives Under The Sea because I heard so many good things about it. I enjoyed a lot of thing about this book, the strangeness of it but it ultimately fell short of a great read for me. I was engrossed for the first few chapters of the book as I wondered what was happening. Why was Leah gone for six months when the mission should have been for three weeks? What has she been bleeding, shedding algae and spending most of her time in the bath since she came back? There’s so much potential for this book to be great, so many clues of something sinister going on. Is Leah turning into something not quite human? Why can’t Miri get a hold of the Centre who organised the mission? These clues ultimately go nowhere. I finished the book with nothing really resolved and feeling frustrated. It was all too vague for me. I don’t need my hand to be held but I need books to make some kind of sense at the end. I was very disappointed.

A memorably different debut novel which in its brief pages manages to combine myth, fable, submarine adventure and gothic horror in an subliminal exploration of (same sex) love and grieving.

The book is narrated in alternating first party chapters by Miri and her wife Leah in a series of sections named – and implicitly themed - after the descending zones of the sea (Sunlight, Twilight, Midnight, Abyssal, Hadal).

Leah is a marine biologist, now working for the enigmatic Centre for Marine Inquiry and one of a small crew of 3 on a submarine on an unspecified mission to explore the very depths of the ocean. However the voyage which should have taken three weeks instead took six months due to a submarine malfunction – and when she is returned to Miri by the Centre she is altered both mentally and (increasingly) physically – her body increasingly seeming at one with the sea under which she lived for so long.

Miri’s chapters are set some time after Leah’s return – as Miri increasingly tries to understand what is happening to her wife via the difficult to access and impersonal Centre. We witness via her Leah’s increasingly watery and saline regression as well as looking back on the early stages of their relationship. There are a number of quirky elements to Miri’s tale which both add colour and some noteworthy writing: a constantly playing TV in the neighbours flat upstairs which largely soundtracks her life; a friend with vision difficulties and an ex-obsession ; and (in particular) her dalliance with an online site where women fantasise that they are earthbound (EB) while their husbands (MHIS) are on lengthy deep space missions or (more pertinently to Miri) CBW (came back wrong).

Leah’s – which we later find out are from a contemporaneously written journal - tell the story of the voyage interspersed with marine exploration facts, trivia and colour. We learn of the strange lethargy and inaction that affects the crew as they quickly realise that the submarine is out of their control and that they have lost their link to the surface but that all of the life support devices are functioning. But also of the mysterious sound, smell and (for one religiously inclined crew member) voice they experience on the seabed – a voice which eventually drives them to action. We also learn of some sea based myth and legend – most memorably the tale of St Brendan of Clonfort. And this part reaches a haunting ending which casts doubts on both the true nature of their mission as well as the cause of its apparent failure.

Both have suffered parental loss. Miri of her judgmental mother who lived in a crumbling cliff-side house (which Chekov-gun style inevitably hosts the book’s moving conclusion) and who died from a disease which is potentially inheritable (casting its shadow of mortality over Miri). Leah of her father (who she saw as a ghost for a period after his death) who taught her to swim and whose book and magazine collection triggered her love of underwater exploration.

Miri’s section features what I think is a pivotal idea about the liminal phenomenon of "sea lung" - as ultimately that sense of liminality – between air and water, sea and land (picked up brilliantly in an epigraph taken from Moby Dick), sea and sea-bed; between child and parent, lover and lover, wife and wife; between matter and perception; between reality and myth, reality and message board fantasy, reality and reality TV; between matter and perception; and between life and death, relationship and mourning – lies ay the very heart of this very clever and striking novel.

"This alchemist sea, changing something into something else"

This book is one of my favourites from the last year. It is part mystery and part horror. But the part I found most hard hitting was the description of relationships and the grief when they are forced to change or end all together.

Miri is married to Leah who is a marine researcher. Following a deep sea mission that goes horribly wrong, Miri is delighted to have her wife back. But it quickly becomes clear that all is not well and Leah's experience has changed her both mentally and physically.

The story swaps between Miri and Leah's points of view with Miri's side predominantly telling the story of their relationship but also focusing on what has happened since Leah returns. And Leah's side tells the story of what happens on the dive but also touches on her life with Miri.

Hearing the various stories from their relationship was so touching and made the rest of the story hugely impactful. I would highly recommend this book to others and cannot believe that it is a debut novel - huge congratulations to the author on a wonderful piece.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

Wow. Just wow. I honestly had no idea what to expect from this book. It was one I selected purely on title and cover (which is AMAZING). It’s actually quite tricky to describe what I got. There is an undercurrent of unease throughout this whole book, which builds to an inevitable event that left me feeling bereft. The characters are so beautifully drawn, the premise so scarily plausible and the whole book so beautifully written, that what I CAN say is that I don’t really know what that was, but I ADORED it.

A literary horror! Not something I'd normally naturally pick up but I had seen so much hype around this book that I felt like I needed to see what all the fuss was about. I am so glad I did, and all the fuss is totally justified. A story all about love and grief and everything in-between. Leah returns from a deep sea mission to her wife Miri. She should have been under the sea for 3 weeks and returns after 6 months. To begin with everything seems okay, but it becomes quickly apparent that Leah is not the same person she was when she left and that the sea voyage she embarked on was much darker than initially thought, Beautifully written and full of tension.

‘’The deep sea is a haunted house: a place in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness. Unstill, is the word Leah uses, tilting her head to the side as if in answer to some sound though the evening is quiet - dry hum of the road outside the window and little to draw the ear besides.’’

Leah has been fascinated by the sea for her entire life. She’s attracted by its unknown depths – what really does lie beneath?
She is married to Miri and her marine research takes her away on field trips for weeks at a time. But the latest one has lasted for over 6 months and Miri cannot get anyone at the Centre to tell her what is happening to Leah and her two colleagues. They maintain an unhelpful silence.
Meanwhile Leah is in a submarine lying far, far below the ocean’s surface. She has never been down so far before and they are surrounded by darkness. None of their equipment is working and they have no contact with the outside world. But was it a genuine accident that they fell so far or was it deliberate?
And then Leah returns. But changed. What happened to her in the watery depths and why has the Centre quietly stopped operating? And as her metamorphosis begins, Miri realises that their marriage and life together may be coming to an end. She may have to make the ultimate sacrifice for the woman she loves…
This is a real slow burner of a book which has been marketed as literary horror. It’s told in the third person and alternates through Leah and Miri’s eyes. The reader learns how they met, married and their lives together. And slowly we also learn of Leah’s fate, trapped in a claustrophobic vessel as they wait and hope for rescue. On dry land she and Miri live in an almost equally claustrophobic situation in a tiny flat hemmed in by their upstairs neighbours constant TV. With Leah, the reader shares her terror at the submarine falling so far below. The crew hear a voice and strange noises which one of her colleagues’ claims is a ghost
But their relationship changes when Leah comes home. From a marriage in which they were equals, it shifts to Miri slowly and insidiously becoming Leah’s carer. As she bleeds, spends most of her time in the bath and starts to become unrecognisable, Miri begins to realise that she may have to let go of their time together as a final act of love. The horror at home is counterbalanced by Miri still going about her everyday life; working and seeing friends while not understanding what is happening to her wife.

The horror element is kept low-key and it’s left to the reader’s imagination to picture Leah’s transformation. A revival of the body horror genre perhaps? It’s also a very tender story as Miri begins to accept what is happening and her grief at knowing that they will lose their lives together.
The book is Julia Armfield’s debut novel and she has spoken about her love of horror movies and how they have influenced her particular form of queer gothic. Water metaphors abound as does the claustrophobia. Some commentators have commented on the very overt water metaphors and symbolism, but I felt that it suited the plot. It was such an atmospheric story as well in the combination of their daily lives and the strong sense of the unseen. The reader learns what happens to Leah and the crew, but Miri never does. However, she has to deal with its aftermath.

I loved this book for its strangeness and its atmosphere – it’s a novella and the length felt about right. A wonderful cover as well.

My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.