A truly haunting, immersive story with some of the most incredible, lyrical writing I've ever read. As perfect as a book can be.

Our Wives Under the Sea is an utterly immersive, deeply moving story about love and grief, and the mysteries of the sea. Leah, a research marine scientist, has returned from a trip to the bottom of the ocean. Miri, her wife, is at first relieved to have her beloved back home safe. But Leah is not the same woman, and as the story progresses, the author expertly drip feeding clues, it becomes apparent that the sea voyage may have been something much darker. I couldn't put this book down, the characters of Miri and Leah and their alternating perspectives hooked me, and I was caught. Haunting, lyrical, powerful, I can't wait to read whatever Armfield writes next.

“The deep sea is a haunted house: a place in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness.”

The only way I can think to even start this review is to say that this was a truly excellent debut novel, Armfield is masterful at incorporating that which is creepy & eerie into her storylines, leaving you reeling yet also utterly immersed in the tale of the deep sea & the affects it has on those who explore it.

Our story is told via two perspectives, that of Leah & Miri - a married queer couple who are navigating life after Leah returns from a deep sea dive that went horribly wrong. Leah was only meant to be gone for 3 weeks, yet is gone for much longer & the woman who has returned to Miri is not the same one that left. As the story unfolds more & more unsettling occurrences & events come to the surface, leaving the reader feeling somewhat freaked out to put it plainly - yet utterly captivated.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be that interested in submarines & how these crafts operate, yet Armfield will layer her storytelling in such a way that she keeps you hooked. She is an incredible talent who chooses her words carefully, pulling all facts, emotions, occurrences & sheer creepy shit together so perfectly. I feel as if I view the deep sea in a different light, I’m weary of table salt & now watch how long I spend in the bath…..when you have read it, you’ll know.

All in all, an ominous queer love story exploring themes & subject matters I doubt many of us have read before & one that I cannot recommend highly enough (I am wondering why I forgot to include it in my fave’s for ’21).

An enormous thank you to the publisher for the e-galley!

Worth reading for the quality of the writing alone.

Here though is a haunting narrative about relationships and our fascination with the sea. The text is uplifting and memorable yet the story is about love, absence and loss. Flecks of humour and insightful prose balance the sense of apprehension and impending dread.

Told through each individual couple within an enduring relationship. It is the record of thoughts and events, a log that Leah keeps while exploring the darkest depths of the ocean. Interspersed with this is her wife’s account struggling with her prolonged absence and the changes she perceives in the woman she loves. Miri is used to these scientific adventures, but this trip has been longer than planned and Leah has been away and out of communication without explanation for an extended period sufficient that Miri has withdrawn in on herself.

This sense that it’s not going to end well, drives the book and compels the reader to learn more. The small crew in the submarine seem doomed from the start yet Leah returns so the horror shifts elsewhere - what happened at the bottom of the sea; how has it changed the participants and their loved ones imagining the worse at home?

As a child I loved science fiction TV shows like Space Family Robinson and Star Trek but adventures like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea seemed more thrilling and terrifying to my younger inquisitive mind. Jacques Cousteau was on television, exploring the oceans for real and it seemed a world closer to home; with monsters of the deep more credible than aliens.

Perhaps we need more books about the unknown creatures living in the deepest water. Certainly strange species of life seem to have been discovered as we have been able to dive deeper. Fact and fiction can be blurred underwater, as the ocean floor is much closer than stars - light years away. It remains a place of myth and mystery still, from mermaids to Atlantis. Still closer to land the Loch Ness Monster keeps a tourist sector going and maintains the legend.

The film Jaws has had a lasting effect on my psyche, certainly scuba diving a coral reef held a sense of menace and open swimming in Finland’s lakes was not without thoughts of what eyes were observing me below.

This book plays into that anxiety. I think it is a common one, which should make this an attractive book to most. Having read it, this anticipated threat coursed through me and I was not disappointed.

Implied danger or horror is often more powerful than graphic violence. Wobbly sets and plastic sea creatures on Dr Who less frightening than monsters under the bed.

I loved this premise of all is not well; what happened and it’s aftermath? An unspeakable horror or event.

But the class of a true story teller isn’t just that build up to denouncement. It is characterisation and realism. A shared human experience that a reader can identify with; that draws you in as a participant rather than a casual observer. Where a sense of normality, even with nosy neighbours lulls you into a place where the unexplained and the unimaginable can assail you and fill you with horror. Yet it is these strange events that unfold against a relationship bound by reciprocated love that elevates this from a book into literature.

Worth reading for the quality of the writing alone.

Miri’s wife Lea, a marine biologist, has just returned from a mission – months later than expected and irrevocably changed. While Miri works at reconciling her joy at the her wife’s with the desperate realization that there might not be much left of the Lea she knows, Lea herself is lost to the world as she is fixated on the time at the bottom of the ocean and what she encountered there.

The mystery of what happened to Lea under the sea is mostly a background for a study of relationships and human interaction, and a clear answer will not be given – and I prefer it that way. All the mysteries about her encounter on the ocean floor and the mysterious Centre that she worked for could make an excellent novel, but a different one from the book about love, sex, loneliness and grief that is Our Wives Under the Sea.

In the chapters from Miri’s point of view, her vignette-like reminiscences unfold a panoramic view of their relationship along seemingly random, tender, and funny moments. This was where the book shone for me and this is why I would describe it, mostly, as a book about love. I have read reviews that described the novel’s tone as cold and detached, and while that might be true it is nevertheless rare that love and relationships and the sacrifices these entail are described in a way I find so touching. Miri describes her love sometimes with detached confusion, sometimes as an outpouring of disconnected information that she simply has to get out, simply has to make known before the story ends – and every time I stared dumbfounded at the very specific events and connections that only pertain to this very specific fictional relationship, and I wanted to point them out to everyone and say: yes, exactly like this!

Also aside from the central relationship, Armfield simply knows humans. She characterizes people precisely with very specific traits and statements, which might sometimes be clichés, but the ones that you can’t help agree with because you have met this exact person before.

Miri’s hypochondria, her strained and complicated relationship with her late mother, her awkward helplessness in getting close to people (or letting people get close to her) are pictured in clear and unsentimental language that is all the more touching.

The chapters told from Lea’s perspective and which recount the story of her mission, did not hold me in their thrall as much as I expected given that I love anything to do with the ocean, both above and below the surface. While there were great moments that showed the panic and claustrophobia and the strange sense of routine despite the time-loss, and some amazing descriptions of and thoughts about the deep sea, I was always keen to return to the surface, to the present, to the disintegrating relationship.

All in all, it’s a novel I wholeheartedly recommend and I thank the publisher for granting me an ARC via Netgalley.

Julia Armfield's first published title, Salt Slow, was a collection of short stories that were all ever so slightly weird and that was never overstated or over-focussed. Here, with Our Wives Under The Sea, she seems to take the same tack but in a longer format of a novel something falls short. It's a bit too slow to start and difficult to get into, which was a shame as I enjoyed Salt Slow much more. The concept sounds good but, for me, literary horror always seems to take a bit too long to get to the point. If you enjoy that sort of slow, gothic beat, you may like this more than I did.

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.

Our Wives Under The Sea is the debut novel from the critically acclaimed author of salt slow. It’s a story of falling in love, loss, grief, and what life there is in the deep, deep sea.

I was keen to read this as I had enjoyed Armfield's previous book Salt Slow very much. I found this to be just as good. Wonderfully immersive, precisely written, this book captures beautifully the small intimacies between a couple whilst at the same time knowing exactly how to twist the knife and create off putting, creepy images. II would love to know more about what went on down there, in the deep, and also what happened to Matteo?!! I am hoping there may be a sequel to this wonderful book

Highly recommend
Thank you to NetGalley and Picador for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

The deep sea is a haunted house: a place in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness

The personal relationship of Miri and Leah confined to their flat is paralleled by the sense of imprisonment of a deep-sea vessel under the ocean, both places surrounded by unwanted noises and a sense of estrangement. And the slow breakdown of Leah's body surfaces represents the marriage's dissolution until the ultimate moment of lovingly letting someone go.

Armfield's writing is poetic and sympathetic, and he maintains a good level of control throughout. It feels like it could have been tightened up a touch in areas where the watery symbolism gets a little heavy-handed. I also enjoyed the hidden (ha!) messages about mystery, unknowability, and things that aren't rational or visible.

Watery gothic love story

After a deep-sea mission gone bad, Leah returns much changed to wife Miri.

This dual narrative alternates between the two characters, giving us Miri’s sense of loss, Leah’s submarine horror, and glimpses of their past together.

Secondary characters are very much on the periphery, mere sketches. A corporate coverup is left opaque. All of which adds to the mystery and claustrophobic mood.

The love story is tender and realistic, in an us-against-the-world way, and Miri’s grief is palpable. The novel includes some intriguing concepts, too, about the origins and composition of life. However, the author’s voice intrudes too often on this gothic tale for the reader to be immersed.

My thanks to NetGalley and Picador for the ARC.

I loved Salt Slow by this author, so I had high expectations for this one and they were certainly met. I found this book to be so heart breaking because I truly cared for the characters and their relationship. I also really appreciated how subtly the mystery at the heart of the story was approached. One of my favourite books in recent years

An atmospheric, tender story about the aftermath of a deep sea dive which went horribly wrong.

Miri and Leah were happily married until a routine deep sea dive for Leah, which should have only lasted a few weeks, took many months.

The story is told from the perspective of Miri in the present, and Leah recalling the dive.

I wouldn’t call this a horror. There is suspense and grief and that feeling when you think you should have been given just a little bit more…

Julia Armfield's debut novel is one of the hotly anticipated releases for 2022. When I read the blurb for this, I was SO EXCITED! It sounded creepy and gothic and right up my alley. Imagine the thrill of being approved for an arc.
I sat down and read this in a couple of days, and I have mixed feelings. Parts of this were what I was expecting, and it felt like other aspects sort of let the whole book down.

Pros: The concept for this is incredibly unique and such a great concept for a gothic setting. The basic premise is Leah, who works as a deep sea research diver, goes on a mission that goes wrong. I think that drawing on the unknown aspect of the ocean for the purposes of contemporary gothic is ingenious. I also enjoyed the dual narrative whereby the reader learns about the effect of being left behind, as Miri tells her experience about what it's like to contend with grief and loss.

Cons: I think that aspects of the narrative became repetitive and dull. I also wanted Armfield to go more into what happened to Leah under the sea. While I enjoyed the ambiguity of her readjustment to land, there were a few too many elements of the novel - such as the deep sea dive, the Centre, Juna - that were left to the imagination. The combination of all of these being underdeveloped, for me, just made the overall novel feel unfinished.

Overall, I enjoyed the book for its unique take on gothic contemporary, and I will read more by Julia Armfield, but it also lacked some overall finesse for me.

I had the privilege of receiving an arc from Pan Macmillan and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Captivating from the very first lines, this genre-defying novel tells the story of Miri and Leah, a married couple living in London who are trying to re-enter normal life after oceanographer Leah’s recent expedition beneath the waves. The ambiguously-named Centre, which ran the mission, is proving less than forthcoming with follow-up support, leaving Miri adrift as she tries to cope with her wife’s strange and unsettling needs, which have been – as it is ever increasingly apparent – fundamentally altered by her underwater experiences. The slow drip of information shared as the book descends the depths is left to the reader to piece together, adding to the growing sense of unease and, in parts, hand-to-mouth horror: the almost-gothic nature of Leah’s worsening, mysterious condition is perfectly set against everyday domestic matters such as the neighbour’s loud television, amusing articles in the newspaper or memories of the couple’s more easy-going happinesses in the past. Staggeringly beautifully written, Armfeld’s prose – like the deepest, most unexplored parts of the ocean – looks sparse at first, but is teeming with life when you let it wash over you. This almost-poetic musing on love, loss and grief is mesmerisingly romantic, in the oldest, truest sense of the word: by the time the book resurfaces you’re left bereft, both heartbroken for the lovers and simultaneously awe-struck at nature’s unknowable vastness, depicted so magnificently in this tiny, intimate tale of two women and their unbounded love for each other.

This book wasn’t what I expected but I enjoyed it all the same.
An emotional, eerie, underwater novel told in past and present, of a submarine expedition gone wrong, the aftermath, and the repercussions on a marriage.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read the book early in exchange for my feedback.

To be honest, I was expecting Our Wives Under the Sea to be quite a bit scarier than it turned out to be. And I’m someone who scares easily, so the fact that I wasn’t scared here says a fair bit. This isn’t to say that overall I didn’t enjoy the book, but I guess what I’m aiming at is that it was, on the whole, a bit disappointing.

The story is told in a dual narrative: Miri’s point of view after Leah has returned from the expedition, and Leah’s set during the expedition. So, as you go along, you start to slowly uncover answers to all of your questions.

I think my main point, though, is about the writing style. It felt kind of as if it was holding you at a remove, and perhaps that’s why I didn’t get so into the book as I wanted to. I just wasn’t feeling the emotions that I was supposed to be. I didn’t feel Miri’s confusion at what the expedition had done to Leah, I didn’t feel Leah’s fear as the submarine sank. In all, it was a bit flat. And probably this is why it didn’t scare me at all.

I mean, the writing was evidently (and objectively) great. Julia Armfield is definitely an accomplished writer and I will more than likely read other books by her, but it’s just that sense of remove that meant the story lacked something for me.

And I think that’s the ultimate reason that I couldn’t rate this more than 3 stars. I liked it, it was good. But I never really moved beyond that. I didn’t even feel much at the end when I should have. It’s one of those books that simply didn’t work for me.

one of my highest anticipated new releases, and it didn’t disappoint. written in julia armfield’s usual soft, lyrical writing this novel paints a tender story about grief and letting go and loss.

all intertwined with a lot of water imagery. the ocean practically seeps from between these pages, all these salt-licked passages. i loved every beautiful, sad, delicate second of this and it left my heart feeling quite heavy once i finished.

many thanks to netgalley for an early reading copy.

I loved Armfield’s short story collection Salt Slow. Her strategy in her debut novel is similar: letting the magical elements seep in gradually so that, lulled into a false sense of familiarity, you find the creepy stuff all the more unsettling.

Miri is relieved to have her wife back when Leah returns from an extended Centre for Marine Inquiry expedition. But something went wrong with the craft while in the ocean depths and it was too late to evacuate. What happened to Leah and the rest of the small crew? Miri starts to worry that Leah – who now spends 70% of her time in the bathtub – will never truly recover. Chapters alternate between Miri describing their new abnormal and Leah recalling the voyage. As Miri tries to tackle life admin for both of them, she feels increasingly alone and doesn’t know how to deal with persistent calls from the sister of one of the crew members.

This is a really sensitive consideration of dependency and grief – Miri recently lost her mother and Leah’s father also died. I especially liked the passages about Miri’s prickly mother: it was impossible not to offend her, and she truly believed that if she resisted ageing she might never die. Leah seems shell-shocked; her matter-of-fact narration is a contrast to Miri’s snark. Armfield gives an increasingly eerie story line a solid emotional foundation, and her words about family and romantic relationships ring true.

I read this in about 24 hours in early December, on my way back from a rare trip into London; it got the 2022 releases off to a fab start to me. Plus, the title and cover combo is killer. I’d especially recommend this to readers of Carmen Maria Machado and Banana Yoshimoto.

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield.

⭐⭐⭐.5/5

Our Wives Under the Sea tells the story of Miri and her wife Julia who has returned from a deep sea mission that ended with catastrophe after the vessel lost all communication with the outside world for months.

This is Armfield's debut novel however I've seen reviews for her other pieces of writing which use some of the descriptors I would have used for this novel: eerie, beautiful, creepy, disturbing. The storyline of Our Wives Under the Sea had me hooked from the start - what happens when a submarine goes missing in the deep sea for months?! - and it is clear that the author has done some serious research to bring the story to life. Her insights into human existence with the deep sea are as beautiful as they are unsettling.

Literary fiction is one of my favourite genres and the writing in this novel is very poetic (and frightening) however I found a lot of it to be superfluous and flowery at times. I do think this is probably one of those books that I could forgive this in if I read it a second time though.

I also feel like the book ended too abruptly for my liking (was this the point?). Frankly, I was left feeling like I needed more closure from this book than I got and this is why I've docked some marks from my scoring.

Overall, I think Julia Armfield is a great writer and I'll definitely be checking out her collection of short stories, 'Salt Slow' in the near future.

Thanks to @panmacmillan for sending me an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. This book will be published on 3rd March 2022.

#bookreview #ourwivesunderthesea
#juliaarmfield

so I loved salt slow by this author, adored her creepy atmosphere, so I knew I wanted to read this asap. at points I thought it was a little slow and a little repetitive but also at points I was genuinely mesmerised and generally loved it?? queen of vibes.

a woman's wife has returned from the sea, where she went on a deep sea excursion gone wrong. she was down there for 6 months when it should have been 3 weeks. nobody knows what happened, but the woman who has returned is not quite herself.

get ready for your worst nightmare 🌊

out march 2022!

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

“Every horror movie ends the way you know it will” writes Armfield in her debut novel. Perhaps, this is the phrase that runs in parallel to her story. Its proleptic plot, uncanny tone, eerie atmosphere and ordinary interjections of life create at once the unheimlich, the ‘disturbing familiar’ that one is impelled to trace and chase through her novel. There have been sketches and outlines of this story before – protagonist comes back from journey altered and loved one can only bear witness to what they have become (Miri) loved one takes journey into the unknown that goes catastrophically wrong (Leah). Though like the sea Armfield is not interested in boundaries and boarders as her debut novel seems to commingle into the genre of Science Fiction. As Marine biologist Leah’s mysterious journey into the “the ocean [that] covers its tracks” and spasmodic “sea soliloquies” illustrate that this is a book thar charters into many different waters. Although Armfield’s novel is mainly situated in the depths of the gothic, “the sea is a haunted house” she writes on the opening page; her debut novel contains many different types of hauntings. Indeed, "Our Wives Under the Sea" by Julia Armfield is characteristic of the Nautical Gothic as her epistolary novel features its various motifs: the sea, the other, ambiguity, claustrophobia, and isolation all of which combined make a submerging read. “To know the ocean […] is to recognise the teeth it keeps half-hidden”; Armfield deftly describes the ocean’s mouth. One willingly commits to being drowned in the atmosphere she has created as her hypotyposis of the maritime and what lies above it: “the night is cold, white lights a curve of a moon like a finger crooked into a claw”, “late September, washed-down dregs of a liquid summer” make "Our Wives Under the Sea" a breath-taking read.

There are many wives under the sea. Armfield constructs them through the multiplicity of memory, flashbacks, and the non-linear structure that artfully anchor her book. Indeed, her dual narrative ensures that plurality is at the heart of this story. Despite the story’s protests that “loving is something we all do alone and through different sets of eyes”, there seems to be a preoccupation with multiplicity that dominates her story. This is because Armfield’s decision to splits her chapters between two alternate narrators (Miri and Leah) aptly conveys the many different multitudes that exist between people in love'. Indeed, her structuring of the story so that Miri’s perspective on Leah’s return proceeds Leah’s departure into deep sea convey the duality of "Our Wives Under the Sea" as opposites (return and departure) are paired. Paradox is an essential part of Armfield’s story telling. Absence is given a physical entity by Armfield through her deft description of the distance that can exist between two people even when they are next to each other. Near the beginning of the novel, she writes of “the silence like a spine” that has formed between Miri and Leah. In a way the reader spends the rest of the story examining “the new shape” their “relationship has taken” on. In an interview with Cosslet in the guardian Armfield described herself as having a preoccupation with “bodies, and the way that they kind of contain us and betray us”. Body Horror is also a key feature of this story .Almost all that she depicts is given a strange corporeality: the city “ is veined with inland tributaries” ,there is ‘bloating’ to a building” “ noise bleeds through the ceiling” of their flat but how Armfield describes the human body of her protagonist is truly abject: “blood would rise unheeded through her pores , so that sometimes I’d come in and find her pincushioned, dotted red as if pricked with needles” .

"Our Wives Under the Sea" probes many questions Are there some experiences that one can never come back from? What does it mean to return at all? Is there a point when someone is lost completely? Armfield’s prose poses these questions too beautifully for them to be ignored.