Our Wives Under the Sea

By Julia Armfield,

Book cover of Our Wives Under the Sea

Book description

Named as book to look out for in 2022 by Guardian, i-D, Autostraddle, Bustle, Good Housekeeping, Stylist and DAZED.

Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah may have come…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

6 authors picked Our Wives Under the Sea as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I view this book as an equal mix of cosmic deep-sea horror, exploration of loneliness, and marital devotion.

I really appreciate that this book follows two flawed women across multiple periods of time, on land and in the deep sea, and across the full length of their relationship. The weight of one of them disappearing beneath the ocean for months profoundly affects both of them–mentally, emotionally, and physically–in different and weird ways, but underneath everything is an enduring love.

I particularly enjoyed the slow-moving body horror in this one, plus the escalating creep of being stuck at the bottom of…

My Goodreads review of this book just says, “Yes yes yes yes yes this is the good stuff,” if you want a sign of my emotional reaction to Our Wives Under the Sea.

This is a gorgeous, compact, spooky, haunting novel about a marriage falling apart, and it came into my life at exactly the right time. Miri’s wife, Leah, is an undersea explorer who vanishes for months under the water without a trace. Finally, she returns—but has all of Leah come back?

I would call this half dark fantasy horror, half contemporary queer literary fiction. Or Mitski meets The…

Sometimes you want to read something that’s just a little bit weird, and this book certainly delivers.

Deep sea strangeness, a creeping sense of unreality, and an achingly beautiful sapphic romance made this book a star of my reading year. If you’re interested in the mysteries of the deep sea or just want to read some truly beautiful writing, I highly recommend it.

If you love Our Wives Under the Sea...

Ad

Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

The ship in this book (a submarine, in this case) features in unsettling flashbacks.

Miri’s wife, Leah, is a marine biologist, and on a routine trip to the bottom of the ocean, a malfunction on the sub means she and the crew remain down there much longer than anticipated. When she returns, she’s not the same. Armfield’s writing is stunning, perfectly encapsulating the strangeness of life at the bottom of the ocean.

This is an eerie but incredibly moving book about relationships and grief.

From Amy's list on spooky ships.

Our Wives Under the Sea feels almost unclassifiable to me, in the best way possible. Is it speculative? Yes. Is it horror? Sort of. Is it also a love story? Yes.

Written in dreamy, lyrical, meandering prose, it follows Miri and Leah in the aftermath of Leah, a marine biologist, having finally returned from a deep-sea trip that took a horrifying turn, though we aren’t entirely sure what happened down there. All we know is, Leah is traumatized and definitely not herself. It is gorgeous, suspenseful, and devastating. Plus, it has the energy of that girlfriend meme: “Would you still…

This is a brilliant novel in which we experience the lives of two women and the challenge that a mysterious absence forces upon their marriage. Armfield creates two very distinct characters and presents an utterly convincing relationship between them, in part by alternating between first-person accounts from both perspectives, showing us how both characters deal with being apart and then, after an unsettling encounter experienced deep in the ocean, how they deal with being back together. It’s when they’re reunited that we see how loss can be a long, ongoing process. Our Wives Under the Sea is wonderfully weird, and…

From Ray's list on using horror to explore loss.

If you love Our Wives Under the Sea...

Ad

Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

Want books like Our Wives Under the Sea?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Our Wives Under the Sea.

Browse books like Our Wives Under the Sea

Book cover of Dracula
Book cover of A Monster Calls
Book cover of Gideon the Ninth

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

2,009

readers submitted
so far, will you?

Ad

📚 If you like Our Wives Under the Sea, you might also like...

Ferry to Cooperation Island by Carol Newman Cronin,

Book cover of Ferry to Cooperation Island

James Malloy is a ferry captain--or used to be, until he was unceremoniously fired and replaced by a "girl" named Courtney Farris. Now, instead of piloting Brenton Island’s daily lifeline to the glitzy docks of Newport, Rhode Island, James spends his days beached, bitter, and bored.

When he discovers a…

The Map Colorist by Rebecca D'Harlingue,

Book cover of The Map Colorist

In 1660, Amsterdam is the map-printing capital of the world. Anneke van Brug is a colorist, paid to enhance the black-and-white maps for the growing number of collectors. Her talent brings her to the attention of the great Joan Blaeu, owner of a prestigious publishing house. Not content to simply…

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in same-sex marriage, mourning, and death?

Mourning 157 books
Death 401 books