Our Wives Under The Sea

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What to expect

Winner of the Polari Prize
Shortlisted for the Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize

‘A gothic fairy tale, sublime in its creepiness’ – Florence Welch

Our Wives Under The Sea is the haunting novel from Julia Armfiled, 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.

Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep sea mission that ended in catastrophe. But it soon becomes clear 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.

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.

'A wonderful novel, deeply romantic and fabulously strange' – Sarah Waters, author of Fingersmith

'Part bruisingly tender love story, part nerve-clanging submarine thriller' – The Times

Critics Review

This haunting novel is beautifully written and artfully narrated by Annabel Baldwin and Robyn Holdaway...Thanks to fine performances, Leah's diary entries, Miri's flashbacks, and the unimaginable mystery of the deep ocean all seem real. Listeners won't want to miss this genre-bending love story. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award 2022
AudioFile
Julia Armfield is one of my favourite writers, Our Wives Under The Sea moves fluidly between horror story and love story, the gorgeous and the grotesque. A contemporary gothic fairy tale, sublime in its creepiness
Florence Welch
A wonderful novel, deeply romantic and fabulously strange. I loved this book
Sarah Waters, author of Fingersmith
Tender, strange, lucid, and so assured – comparisons feel insubstantial, but if you love sci fi or love stories or books that defy labels or chew-your-arm-off good writing, this is for you
Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies and The Dance Tree
Beautiful, otherworldly, like floating through water with your eyes open
Daisy Johnson, author of Fen
Our Wives is spooky and romantic: a gorgeous, lyrical novel that gets under your skin. Armfield leads you softly through a story that feels epic and intimate at the same time
Sarvat Hasin, author of The Giant Dark
Reading this book is like diving into the deepest depths of the ocean and finding beautiful and disturbing wonders
Kirsty Logan, author of She is Witch
Delicate and horrifying, Our Wives Under The Sea is a darkly brilliant novel that submerges the reader's imagination in the depths of the unknown
Megan Hunter, author of The End We Start From
A mesmerizing triumph. Julia Armfield has created a surprisingly seamless novel: it is a love story, a grief story, a question without end. It's a tale of the sea that swallows you whole and breaks your heart in the very best way. It is tender and funny. It is shockingly bold. Without a doubt, it is one of the best books I've ever read. It's not only art, it's a perfect miracle. We are lucky for it
Kristen Arnett, author of Mostly Dead Things
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
The 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
The 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
Julia Armfield’s haunting debut novel deftly weaves a love story into creeping horror . . . Our Wives Under The Sea is a quiet triumph, but beware – this unsettling, saltwater-soaked story seeps deeper than you think
The i
If you're in the mood to cry, then Julia Armfield wrote the perfect book for ya . . . Armfield breaks your heart over and over (but in a good way, promise)
Cosmopolitan
Essential and haunting
Stylist
Frightening, otherworldly, but above all gripping
The Sunday Times
Julia Armfield’s weird and wonderful debut feels fresh (or rather, salty) . . . You hear a lot of people lamenting the death of innovation in contemporary fiction . . . and Armfield is a brilliant counterpoint
The Times 100 Best Books for Summer
Our Wives Under The Sea is a hypnotic and affecting love story - an exploration of intimacy and its opposites, as well as of incomprehension, absence and unfathomable uncertainty
Literary Review
A strange, unnerving novel that wrongfoots you at every turn and invites you to think again about loss, absence, and transformation, Our Wives Under The Sea also returns wholly original answers to that great question, 'Where did we come from, where are we going?' It is a beautiful, lyrically written elegy
Neel Mukherjee
Strange and romantic . . . a deeply unnerving elegy to memory
i-D
A modern fable about grief, love, and what really lies deep at the bottom of the ocean
Autostraddle
Lyrical and moving
Prima
Armfield’s novel expertly interweaves fairy-tale and horror motifs with a moving and intimate portrayal of loss
The Fantasy Hive

Otherworldliness infuses the everyday with a haunting lucidity. This gorgeously written tale confirms
Julia Armfield as a master of the domestic uncanny, and of observing human relationships

Culture Whisper
A modern-day myth about love, grief and the depths of the ocean that moves fluidly between romance and horror
Monocle
Deeply romantic and devastating
Refinery29 'Best Books for Summer Holidays'

User Reviews

Book 4.4
Narration 4.8
5.0
5.0
A great and terribly sad story. The most promising and original take on the mythos I have listened/read in a long time, though the the focus is not on otherwordly horror but the very human dimensions of it.
Armfield has mastered the Art of Words and manages to touch something very deep inside of me.
suiram23 04/09/2025
5.0
4.0
Beautifully written, a lovely juxtaposition of wry, funny observations about relationships and life with a strong love story and a supernatural storyline of sea-based weirdness. I enjoyed it a lot. The narration took a bit of getting used to, for me.
marieiram 09/08/2025
5.0
5.0
Katla 14/06/2025
3.0
4.0
pollybaker87 09/06/2025
5.0
5.0
zara.harrison 30/12/2024
5.0
5.0
zala.t 23/06/2024
2.0
5.0
Jepson_Brown 07/05/2023
5.0
5.0
healeybecks 27/03/2023

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