Waist Deep

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

A luscious summer novel about friends, lovers, and friends' lovers

Five friends from university; seven summer days in a cabin in rural Denmark. A chance to swim, sunbathe, flirt, read and mess around like in the old days.

At least that’s what Sylvia had hoped. But when her friends arrive with real jobs, kids and partners, Sylvia is left wondering what happened to the radical ways of living they embraced at university. Worse, Esben and Karen announce their plan to get married at the end of the week, striking a blow to Sylvia’s simmering, decades-long crush on Esben – a crush that her monogamous girlfriend Charlie would definitely not approve of.

Whilst the group swim, sunbathe, cook and flirt their way to midsummer night, desire and anxiety swirl in equal measure. As the wedding day approaches, will they achieve their arcadian dreams or will everything come tumbling down?

‘Clever, wry, and incredibly sexy’ SUSANNAH DICKEY

'Delicious, and provocative' ESTHER FREUD

‘Sensuous and vivid... A book to devour' LAURA KAY

'Trembles and flashes with hot emotion, confusion and pangs of longing' AMY KEY

‘A perfume dream of a debut about the wild force of friendship’ Politiken, largest Danish newspaper

‘Linea Maja Ernst writes about sexual desire so well that it turns her readers on’ Weekendavisen, popular Danish cultural magazine

© Linea Maja Ernst 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critics Review

Waist Deep is an enjoyable page-turner, a sympathetic and perceptive examination of the importance of moving on and letting go ... an evocative debut about the fragility and fluidity of adult friendship
Observer
A beautiful and sensuous book that stayed with me long after I read it
Daily Mail
Waist Deep trembles and flashes with hot emotion, confusion and pangs of longing. I loved its cast of characters and their reaching towards what their lives might be together, and alone
Amy Key
Waist Deep is such an enjoyable read: clever, wry, and incredibly sexy. In Linea Maja Ernst's gorgeous prose, translated superbly by Sherilyn Hellberg, the clotty intersections of desire, ideology, and ennui are explored in the most vividly luxuriant surroundings. I was totally besotted with these characters, and desperate for a dip in a lake by the end.
Susannah Dickey
Sensuous and vivid. Simmering with sexual tension and with an undercurrent of deep longing - for a different life, for each other - there is something here that every adult with a group of friends will recognise (even if they won't admit it). A book to devour and enjoy every minute of
Laura Kay
Delicious, and provocative
Esther Freud
I devoured it in a day and absolutely adored ... I loved spending time by the lake with these characters watching them fall in and out of love with each other
Brydie Lee-Kennedy
Hot, heady and beautifully queer, Waist Deep pulls you under and doesn't let go. I felt every breath, every touch, every impossible desire. It's a novel that lives in the body
Lotte Jeffs
An intense, confrontational and in every sense interesting novel about the fragility and (for some) fluidity of identity
Information
Linea Maja Ernst writing about opulent dinner parties and the heady magnetism of midsummer forests is sensory and atmospheric
Soundvenue

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