I enjoyed the beginning of this – the atmosphere was really well done, Miri’s frustration in the present and her confusion about the weird behaviour that Leah is displaying as well as the frustration at the lack of communication from her workplace as well as the difficulty in contacting them or getting a single straight answer about anything. The other viewpoint is Leah herself and that is from her perspective during the doomed venture in the submersible – from the moment they realise they’ve lost power and are sinking to the bottom of the sea floor as well as the various incidents that happen during their time out of communication, the weird and the tragic. It does flash back to various points during Leah’s missing period but for the most part it deals in the after and what Leah is going through now. Miri’s viewpoint is mostly told in the present, after Leah has returned from six months or whatever it was, under the sea when she was only supposed to be gone three weeks. The book is told in two sections, alternating viewpoints between Miri and Leah. There’s something about that feeling of being trapped under water should anything that go wrong, that lends the creepiest vibe – and in this book, something does indeed go wrong.

I kind of love submarine stuff – I’ve watched a few movies centring around them and a TV show or two but I’ve never really read a book about characters on a submarine. I thought, from the brief amount I heard about it, that it sounded fascinating. I think I heard about this in a podcast I was listening to and I was super pleased when I searched it up on my library’s database and found it on the shelf. It’s a story of falling in love, loss, grief, and what life there is in the deep deep sea.ĭo you ever read a book, get to the end and then think to yourself ‘I have absolutely no idea what happened there?’ Our Wives Under The Sea is the debut novel from Julia Armfield, the critically acclaimed author of salt slow. Though Leah is still there, Miri can feel the woman she loves slipping from her grasp. Moving through something that only resembles normal life, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had before might be gone. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has brought part of it back with her, onto dry land and into their home.

It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah is not the same.

Blurb : Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep-sea mission that ended in catastrophe.

Our wives under the sea