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Private Rites

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What to expect

‘One of my favourite writers’ Florence Welch

‘A writer whose next move you wouldn’t want to miss’ Observer

The bestselling author of Our Wives Under the Sea returns with a stunning, unsettling novel following three sisters navigating queer love and faith at the end of the world.

There’s no way to bury a body in earth which is flooded

It is a fact consigned to history along with almost everything else

It’s been raining for a long time now, for so long that the lands have reshaped themselves. Old places have been lost. Arcane rituals and religions have crept back into practice.

Sisters Isla, Irene and Agnes have not spoken in some time when their estranged father dies. A famous architect revered for making the new world navigable, he had long cut himself off from public life. They find themselves uncertain of how to grieve his passing when everything around them seems to be ending anyway.

As the sisters come together to clear the grand glass house that is the pinnacle of his legacy, they begin to sense that the magnetic influence of their father lives on through it. Something sinister seems to be unfolding, something related to their mother’s long-ago disappearance and the strangers who have always been unusually interested in their lives. Soon, it becomes clear that the sisters have been chosen for a very particular purpose, one with shattering implications for their family and their imperilled world.

‘A book of extraordinary sentences, set in end-times which feel bleakly real yet pulse with a tireless, tangible force of love’ Megan Hunter, author of The End We Start From

'Slick and slippery, Julia Armfield's latest novel is the author at her finest' Kristen Arnett, author of With Teeth

‘Armfield’s signature cocktail of deadpan wit and staggering beauty’ Alice Slater, author of Death of a Bookseller

‘Julia Armfield is an era-defining writer’ Kaliane Bradley, author of The Ministry of Time

‘An astonishing ambitious novel’ Sarvat Hasin, author of The Giant Dark

'lyrical, haunting, unsettling' Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World

Critics Review

  • ‘A book of extraordinary sentences, set in end-times which feel bleakly real yet pulse with a tireless, tangible force of love’ Megan Hunter, author of The End We Start From

    ‘Delivered with Julia Armfield’s signature cocktail of deadpan wit and staggering beauty… a sharply observed exploration of grief, family and the end of the world as we know it’ Alice Slater, author of Death of a Bookseller

    ‘Slick and slippery, Julia Armfield’s latest novel is the author at her finest … Armfield writes the kind of books that stick with you for life. I am proud to be one of her biggest fans’ Kristen Arnett, author of With Teeth

    ‘A witty, brutal examination of the ways that the bonds of family can be strangulating, or transfigured by the painful pressure of intimacy into something devastatingly, unfairly tender; and one of the most brilliant, original visions of climate crisis Britain I have ever read. Private Rites has the elemental power of a thunderstorm and the thrilling emotional honesty of a first kiss. Julia Armfield is an era-defining writer’ Kaliane Bradley, author of The Ministry of Time

    ‘The rain soaked world of Privates Rites is one you’ll want to linger in: despite the creeping sense of dread, the characters and relationships Armfield has created are totally compelling. An astonishing ambitious novel that won’t let you go’ Sarvat Hasin, author of The Giant Dark

    ‘Lyrical, haunting, unsettling, and J.G. Ballard-ian in apocalyptic scope. What makes the novel soar even as its world drowns are the sisters – Iris, Irene, and Agnes – who are deeply, passionately, messily human’ Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World

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