This was a very interesting story. I really enjoyed the structure and the audio narrators did a great job. It is a bit scary and the ending does not tie everything up neatly, so don't expect know all the answers at the end. The path and development of the characters is exceptional.

Our Wives Under the Sea is a beautiful exploration of queer love, grief and a love letter to the ocean and the things that live in it. Armfield's prose is stunning and effective, and though I do wish it'd leaned more into the sci-fi
spooky elements of the story, I still absolutely adored it.

This was…an interesting listen. I got a little board in the middle but it was just so odd of a storyline, but maybe not the best execution or conclusion.

One, a wife home, another on a submarine voyage that goes from 3 weeks to 6 months. When she returns, she has bizarre behavior and clear PTSD. They never fix what is weird between them, they never talk, we never find out what happens either way. neither what happened in the sea to Leah nor how they resolve anything or don’t.

On the flip side I’ve never read anything like this before so it was refreshing in that way but so wild to me, after trauma, to not be able to talk or connect to your spouse in ANY way. It flipped perspectives and I didn’t get enough from Miri on all the befores, and what she did say to day as she just had a missing wife. And on Leah’s I didn’t get enough of what caused her trauma and there’s no perspective of her after she’s out of the situation.

I was unsatisfied and yet still want answers…

Special thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Our Wives Under the Sea is a stunning queer novel about grief and love and horror. Armfield writes the story of a marriage, a wife returned from sea, and the strangeness that comes between them.

It is compact, beautiful, terrifying, and heartbreaking.

Leah was supposed to be gone for two weeks and was instead lost at the bottom of the sea for months. Miri is happy to have Leah back, but begins to believe Leah wasn’t really returned to her.
The story unfolds elegantly through both Miri and Leah’s perspectives.
The prose is mesmerizing as is the exploration of grief and horror.

The narration is excellent.

On a surface level, this is a sapphic, character-driven, "something's-under-the-bed" horror novel, with undertones of oceanic environmentalism, and existentialism.

Of you peel back the top layer, however, this book is a powerful novel saturated with tokens of symbolism. I had a really deep conversation with another bookstagramer who received this book as an ARC and how, even though we read the same book, we interpreted it so differently. Each reader gets to bring their own life experience and interpret it in a way that applies to them individually.

To my friend, this was a story about what a failing marriage looks like. The growing distance, the slow disappearance of someone you loved, and your gradual acceptance if this inevitability.

For me, however, this book was about what happens when someone we love experiences a traumatic event, and how its rippling effects echo in every facet of their lives.

We often use phrases like "I'm drowning in work!" , or "I'm barely holding my head above water!" So, to me, the submarine being stuck at the bottom of the sea is a metaphor for "rock bottom," completely submerged in whatever overwhelming circumstance we are experiencing.

When Leah comes back, the saltwater starts leaking out of her - the clear-water vomit, the liquifying of her eyes, how her skin begins to transform into water, and her eventual dissipation into it. To me, this is what trauma does to out mental health - its horrific, debilitating effects would be so grotesque if only we could see a physical representation of it. It's unintentional – we start to become a shell of our former self. We find ourselves in a figurative bathtub full of water, returning to the memory in an attempt to process the trauma in a safe environment.

I found it so heartbreaking and impactful, and I would highly recommend it to each and every avid reader.

Five stars, no doubt.

Well this was a very strange, oddly compelling book. I finished it in less than 24 hours and was utterly riveted for the last couple hours of the recording. Still processing what it is I just read but I think it was very very interesting and unique.

A beautiful, well-written, eerie story that ultimately falls flat on plot and characterization.

I really struggled with this book. One one hand, I loved the writing and the premise. Armfield's prose is strong and evocative (sometimes trying a bit too hard to be poetic, but I didn't mind that); and, as other reviewers have said, the story reminds you of a modern-day Changeling myth with a lesbian bent on it, very well executed, never cheesy, highly emotional.

On the other hand, I couldn't shake the feeling of boredom as I was listening to this book. It was so repetitive from both characters' perspectives that I was waiting for something to escalate, something to happen, and nothing did until the very end - and even then, it's not an ending that ties up all loose ends; there's still much to be desired. I enjoyed the rotating narration, but Leah and Miri weren't distinguished as individuals as much as I would have liked - I didn't get to know each of them as people. (In fact, I just learned that they're voiced by different narrators, but I couldn't even tell that from the audiobook.)

Overall, for a short book, the writing will make you stay. But the plot and characters weren't as strong as the book deserved, and the repetition/pacing made me lose interest in the book at points. Thank you to Dreamscape Media for the audio ARC via Netgalley.

Julia Armfield’s “Our Wives Under the Sea” is an eerily beautiful, melancholic, tender, and haunting novel that reads like an A24 film. A commentary on love, loss, grief, and what it means to lose someone; to lose yourself.

Told in alternating POVs, we follow Miri and Leah who have been reunited after 6 long months apart. After what was supposed to be only a three-week long mission, Leah has returned from a deep-sea expedition where she was stranded in a submarine, submerged in isolation below the surface. Miri, her wife, is relieved to finally have her back, but Leah is irrevocably changed. Miri comes to realize that the woman she loves is slipping from her grasp as she mourns Leah and the life they had before.

Beginning in the Sunlight Zone, the book is broken into parts titled after the different layers of the ocean. Readers and listeners will descend further into the depths and vastness of the sea as the deeper you go, the darker Miri and Leah’s story gets.

Thank you to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for the ALC in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 stars

The writing itself is gorgeous and haunting. The narrators did an amazing job.

But at the 50% mark I found myself going 'Ok where's the catch?', the entire story can be summed up by the back cover blurb, NOTHING ELSE happens? I kept hoping for a twist, a scare, an unexpected.
The ending was entirely predictable just from the blurb. (Extra disappointing because I LOVE how scary the ocean is and there was surprisingly little of that here)

Conclusion: read this for the imagery, the heartbreaking sapphic longing for someone who is gone but also right in front of you. Don't read this expecting to be scared or surprised at all.

Thanks to NetGalley & the publisher for access to the Audiobook ARC.

Well….I finished this one. I guess the fact that it was shorter was a blessing in disguise. Going in I thought I’ve never read a book about someone who works on a submarine and the perspective of the spouse, original! This book felt like a metaphor I did not understand and sunk quick.

The narrators did a fantastic job on this audiobook. The story is so atmospheric, and their voices did such a fantastic job of immersing me into the book. Such calming tones and such great voice acting, I absolutely loved this audiobook and would highly recommend to others.

This is a wild, surreal book about a wife who loses everything under the sea. It’s a weird book that is …. extremely British. I read this on audiobook and I think this was the only thing that allowed me to keep the two different perspectives of each wife straight (they are narrated by different narrators). This book is like, fundamentally sad and melancholy and absolutely soaked. Like, there’s just water metaphors everywhere. I uhhhhh don’t really know how I feel about this book. Three and a half stars, rounded up for NetGalley/Goodreads. Like many Surreal Vibes books, I think it kind of falls apart in the latter half. Readalike for Mr. Penumbra’s 24-hour bookstore? I feel like that’s the last Surreal Book I read. But that book is much more grounded in reality and this book is…. not.

Our Wives Under the Sea shares the alternating points of view between wives Leah and Miri. Miri's chapters display her concerns over Leah after she returns from what should have been a standard submarine expedition that ended up taking six months instead of three weeks. Miri finds Leah to be a shell of a person she once was. Her long baths, frequent nosebleeds, and disassociation from the world around her are a mystery to Miri, who despite numerous attempts, cannot get to the bottom of the events of Leah's voyage. Leah gives us glimpses of insight into what happened.

Like many literary fiction novels, the plot of this book is secondary compared to the writing and atmosphere. There were some beautiful sentences, but I still hoped for more with this book. I'm not gah-gah over open endings either, so I never felt much of a sense of closure. Some more detail into Leah would have been nice, but even still, this was a different and enjoyable read that I'm sure many readers will appreciate.

🎧⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

I just finished listening to “Our Wives Under the Sea” and it is a story of great love of Miri and Leah, and Leah’s return from 6 months stuck in a submarine at the bottom of the ocean. And then it gets weird.

The end of the book brought it up a 1/2 star, but listening to it it just seemed so long, even though it was actually very short. Although the love that Miri and Leah had for each other gave me all the good feels, I just thought it was performed pretty, well, boringly. If I had read it instead of listened to it I may have a different reaction.

Thank you @netgalley and @dreamscape_media for choosing me to listen to this advanced copy of #ourwivesunderthesea.

#netgalley
#dreamscapemedia
#mybookishlife
#readmorebooks
#readmorebooksbywomen
#audiobook

Thanks to Netgalley for this audio in exchange for an honest review.
Due out in print form July 12.
The audio narrated by Annabel Baldwin and Robyn Holdaway was excellent


I've seen this book described as Science Fiction and in a broad sense I can understand the labeling but I found it a contemporary fiction story with a speculative element woven in.
This is the story of a married lesbian couple, Miri and Leah. Leah is employed as a researcher traveling to the deepest parts of the ocean in a submersible craft. During one of these voyages the craft looses power in a deep underwater canyon and what happens there becomes the drama that floats this story. Miri is left at home, at first wondering if Leah so long underwater is now dead and then left to cope when Leah finally re-surfaces, a changed woman. The story is told from alternating points of view (not always linear). The back stories of these two women are woven into the drama of what happened far below and what is happening above the watery surface.

The unfolding contains less tension than I expected as the story is slow and so much only hinted at rather than described in full. This is not "Jaws" but instead a slow reveal of the dangers or "teeth" of the worlds hidden in the depths of the ocean. There is so much beautiful writing here that I would recommend reading or listening to it even if one has no interest in deep water mysteries and a relationship in crisis. I so often wished I had a print copy to underline and remember phrases and descriptions used.

I will say my favorite part of the book was the tidbits of facts about the ocean and the watery world that makes up so much of the world around us, that we crawled out of and still lives within us. The description and explanation of tides, the forming of oceans, how much salt water lies within us, all so beautifully told. It makes this story a stand out for me. In all I enjoyed it much, though at times I found it slow going and with depths I think I was unable to appreciate. I think it might be better in print, where one could really sink into it and ponder so much more of what it reveals, not only about the ocean but about this relationship of these two women. Really worth a second read.

This audiobook is narrated by Annabel Baldwin and Robyn Holdaway with soothing, calm voices and distinctive personalities as they alternate between Leah, the scientist who embarked on a submarine expedition gone wrong, and Miri, her loving wife who realizes something is changing within the woman she feared missing, upon her return. Leah's voice is precise, scientific, straightforward and friendly, reminding me of how Jane Goodall speaks, educating the readers about her fascination for marine life and the mission she embarked upon. Miri's voice is sarcastic, sometimes pessimistic, funny, observant, yearning, wistful, grief-stricken as she remembers her past relationships with her mother, meeting Leah and their relationship before the fateful voyage and the grief upon the mission mishap and the tension and anxiety surrounding Leah's well-being with her return. Her voice reminded me a bit of Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Fleabag (a show I LOVED) and as a character one would seek to befriend and get to know better. I loved the narrations so much, I honestly can't imagine what reading the hard copy would be like without the beautiful imagery and inflection the audio imparted to the story. The story encompasses the couple's life before and after the incident, relating the hopes, dreams, loves, grief and letting go that life throws at all of us. It was poetic and beautiful, and haunting and mysterious. I do wish that there would have been a bit less of a vagueness concerning the actual mission, the company who commissioned the mission, what happened afterwards/why, but I guess that adds to the mystery.

By far my favourite book of the year so far. This is a literary love story, told through a lens of grief, but it's so much more than that. It's wonderfully weird and evocative and gorgeously written. If you skip it, you're making a mistake. I listened to the audiobook, which was a delight, but I'm sure it's just as fantastic in print. I'll be thinking about certain images from this book for a long time. The characters were vivid and alive and wonderful. Read the book. It is a whole journey and you'll feel different about the deep ocean when you're done.

I went into this book with zero expectations, picking it up purely because I liked the cover: suffice it to say I was pleasantly surprised. It's a slow burn, but I couldn't put it down. It is the story of a wife returning from a deep sea military mission and her struggles to readjust to land. Flowing between the past and the present, it is as haunting as it is terribly mundane - a leisurely and darkly funny dip into cosmic horror. It's also about grief and love in deteriorating relationships (familial, platonic, and romantic) PLUS it is packed to the brim with fun ocean facts. Highly recommended for fans of Carmen Maria Machado, Jeff Vandermeer, and Samanta Schweblin.
Overall I rate the book somewhere between 4 and 5, but something in Armfield's writing just sunk deep into my bones and it's making me round up.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I really love lit fiction so I enjoyed the writing especially in the beginning. The descriptions of the relationships and even mothers was beautifully told. The horror aspect was vague and I think on purpose to let your mind wander and come to your own conclusions. It’s definitely a different type of book that won’t resonate with everyone but for a certain type of reader this will be a hit. I listened and enjoyed the narrator(s), and liked the varying perspectives. 3.5 stars rounded up.

The way Armfield wrote about grief really hit home for me. She said that what hurts most isn’t the loss itself, but the emptiness that it leaves behind. The fact that you’ll never see that person again. I feel that rings true.

She goes one-step further, asking the question; when is the right time to start grieving? In this book, Miri mourns the person that Leah once was, while Leah herself is right there, just different.

This was a beautifully written, almost subtle horror. The author didn’t go out of her way to show us things you’d usually expect from horror taking place in the deep sea, like monsters and other horrific creatures. Instead, she does the opposite; the scary part is that there’s nothing. Well, not until the end, but the isolation of the crew is a big part of what makes the situation so scary. They’re on their own, left to assume the worst & panic.

The body horror is another thing. Rather than going into graphic, toe-curling detail, the author left her descriptions rather vague, which I actually liked. It left it to the imagination, which is what I love about book period, and over-descriptive writing kind of takes away from that.

I’m a sucker for literary fiction, and this was no exception. Im a fan of horror as well, and this was rather the perfect mix for me to read & enjoy.

I definitely recommend this book!!