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The Lesbrary

Sapphic Book Reviews

the cover of Our Wives Under the Sea
Lesbrary Reviews

Love, Grief, and the Abyssal Depths of the Ocean: Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

March 3, 2025 by Emilia Ferrante

There is a peculiar kind of sadness in telling a love story backwards, starting with its end. There’s the tenderness and domesticity of an established relationship, and the inevitable fact of its eventual nonexistence. This love story captures a relationship by chronicling its end. Our Wives Under the Sea, Julia Armfield’s debut novel, is a captivating tale told in alternating perspectives about a couple, Miri and Leah, the latter of whom goes out on a deep-sea exploration and comes back irrevocably changed. The book weaves Miri’s struggle to reconcile the slow slipping away of her wife, Leah, with Leah’s recounting of the events of the deep-sea submersible dive. 

Private Rites cover
Lesbrary Reviews

A Haunting Gothic About Family in (Climate) Crisis: Private Rites by Julia Armfield Review

December 10, 2024 by Rachel Friars

As an avid reader of all of Julia Armfield’s fiction, I was eager to pick up her newest novel. From the author of Our Wives Under the Sea (2022), Private Rites (Fourth Estate, 2024) promised to be poignant, haunting, and literary.   Set in a future world where environmental disaster has flooded much of the world with ceaseless rains, threeRead More

Lesbrary Reviews

A Meditation On Grief Through a Speculative Lens: Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield

October 21, 2023 by SK

Bookshop.org Affiliate Link I’ve seen this book mainly categorised as horror but after reading it, it feels more like a speculative fiction with elements of horror and sci-fi in it. This book transcends genres: that’s the mark of a phenomenal read!  I went into this story expecting an action-packed, horror-strewn plotline and found something muchRead More

the cover of Our Wives Under the Sea
Lesbrary Reviews

Danika reviews Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

October 15, 2022 by Danika Ellis

Amazon Affiliate Link | Bookshop.org Affiliate Link I am a scaredy cat and avoid horror most of the year. But when September and October come around, I find myself being pulled towards all things creepy, witchy, and thriller-y. Of course, queer horror goes on the top of my TBR in those months. Fun fact: I’veRead More

the cover of Rachel Reviews Our Wives Under the Sea
Lesbrary Reviews

Rachel reviews Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

April 12, 2022 by Lesbrarians

Amazon Affiliate Link | Bookshop.org Affiliate Link Stunning, poignant, and totally unputdownable, Julia Armfield’s debut novel Our Wives Under the Sea (Picador 2022) is one of my favourite queer novels of 2022! Our Wives Under the Sea is a dual-perspective narrative that follows both Miri and her wife Leah. Miri’s chapters narrate Leah’s return from a deep-sea missionRead More

About Me

About the Lesbrary

The Lesbrary is a sapphic book blog that started in 2010. It's run by Danika Ellis, and we have about a dozen reviewers from around the world recommending sapphic books in every genre. Check out the top navigation bar for more about the Lesbrary as well as options to browse by genre, age category, rating, and more.

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