Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

WINNER OF THE POLARI BOOK PRIZE 2023

When Leah finally returns after a deep sea mission that ended in catastrophe, her wife Miri knows that something is wrong.

Whatever happened in that vessel stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has carried part of it with her, onto dry land and into their home.

As Miri searches for answers to her wife's altered state, she must face the possibility that the woman she loves is slipping from her grasp.

As in her stories, Armfield is extremely good at anatomising the women’s relationship: the self-defensive blindnesses, the resentments and rituals and angers, grief for vanished joys – all the small moments of which lasting love consists. There are clever lines, everywhere, and wry, funny ones. - Guardian

Sharp, atmospheric, dryly funny, sad, distinctive . . . There is an almost spiritual endlessness to its quest. Like all good novels, it goes deep and then deeper again. - Irish Times

Part bruisingly tender love story, part nerve-clanging submarine thriller. Creative innovation is there if you’re looking for it — and to anyone lamenting its loss: order a copy . . . There is such tenderness in the precision of these observations of long-term love and such eerie estrangement when the uncanny intrudes. Eventually, the two moods fuse at the novel’s heart-slicing, cinematic climax. I’ll be thinking about it for ages — and checking the bathtub for grit. - The Times

Essential and haunting. - Stylist

Frightening, otherworldly, but above all gripping. - Sunday Times