Bookseller Reviews
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Flawlessly written dystopia with a sinister twist
"How, she wondered, is one supposed to grieve an absence when that absence is familiar? What, she wondered, was grief without a clear departure to regret."... READ MORE
Harrowingly beautiful
Private Rites is the climate disaster novel I never knew I needed! Julia Armfield has taken all the tension and uneasy dread from Our Wives Under The Sea a... READ MORE
A compelling twist on the end of the world!
'Private Rites' follows the story of three sisters after the death of their father. The world is now covered in water & won't stop raining, the novel follo... READ MORE
Claustrophobic, brooding, beautifully bleak
Our Wives under the Sea was one of the oddest and dreamiest books of last year - one definitely to be read in the bath, so I was very fortunate to receive... READ MORE
An unsettling glimpse into the concept of doomsday, and what it means when the 'end times' never end.
I was so lucky to receive an early copy of Private Rites. This book is absolutely incredible. Armfield draws us into a world where the sea has enroached on... READ MORE
masterfully eerie
It's no secret that I adore Armfield's writing and Private Rites is no exception. I came to this hoping for haunting prose, whip-smart wit and an all-encom... READ MORE
Grief and the end of the world
This is an incredible novel.
Unsettling and sad, but with a twist of wit, this follows three sisters as they process the complex grief of their father's... READ MORE
Eery, Uneasy, and Beautiful - A Must Read!
I was lucky enough to receive an advanced proof of Private Rites, and I can safely say it is a book of the year for me. We think so much of the end of the ... READ MORE
A rain-drenched, dystopian family drama
A beautiful take on a not too distant dystopian future where the effects of climate change have resulted in a waterlogged earth. Armfield writes beautifull... READ MORE
Her second incredible wet book
I’m struggling to find the words for how much I adored this book. Julia Armfield has further cemented herself as one of the most talented and exciting auth... READ MORE
An unusual but perfect blend of realistic characters with an apolcalyptic, horror-ish future reality
There is so much to unpack here; queer identities, queerness and soggy symbolism, loss, climate disaster, disaster fiction, ritual, grief, siblings, King L... READ MORE
Brilliantly written, stays with you after reading
I thoroughly enjoyed Private Rites!
Private Rites has such a visceral apocalyptic setting, set in the end times where humanity is ending gradually, it r... READ MORE
Sisters, grief and love at the end of the world
Somewhere between 4 and 5 stars!
Sisters, grief and love at the end of the world - this is the climate disaster novel I never knew I needed. A very abso... READ MORE
Heartfelt and haunting
Screeched like a feral cat when this came through my letterbox. Julia Armfield is a phenomenal writer whose books I will continue to read as long as she wr... READ MORE
Beautiful
This is such a fantastic depiction of difficult familial relationships, there is tension, there is dread and the writing is absolutely beautifully done. I ... READ MORE
More exquisite, waterlogged prose from the author of Our Wives Under The Sea
In a not-top-distant future, it is always raining. Sea levels have risen and in response, so have people's homes.
Isla, Irene and Agnes are half sister... READ MORE
Hauntingly addictive dystopia.
I will read any word this author will toss my way - I adored 'Our Wives Under the Sea' and her collection of short stories 'Salt Slow', so when this novel ... READ MORE
Gripping, imaginative and human
Our Wives Under The Sea is my favourite book and I was absolutely overwhelmed to get a proof copy of Private Rites. Julia Armfield has such a way of writin... READ MORE
Flooded with emotion, atmosphere, and literal rain
When I opened up my gorgeous proof copy from 4th Estate and saw a quote from King Lear (my favourite play) as the first epigraph I knew this book was going... READ MORE
Dissolved
This book does this thing where it makes you realise very suddenly that certain conditions (childhood/drowning world) are a lot worse than expected. And yo... READ MORE
Strange, sinister and spellbinding!
‘Private Rites’ explores how three estranged sisters process their father’s recent death in a post-apocalyptic city that is slowly flooding in a constant r... READ MORE
An ode to love in the end-times
Full of beautiful prose and exquisite writing, Julia Armfield has once again stunned with Private Rites, a devastatingly gorgeous study on love which is po... READ MORE
un-put-down-able CliFi
An un-put-down-able CliFi with a cataclysmic journey. A modern queer re imagining of King Lear, wherein the horror isn't just the atmosphere, but also in e... READ MORE
Another knock out from Julia Armfield
It’s taken me a while to be able to write this review, but even now I’m left with the thought of ‘What was that that I just read’ but in the best way possi... READ MORE
Captivating and Unusual!
There is so much to love about Private Rites. Armfield draws us into a world where the sea has enroached on the land but despite this people are still havi... READ MORE
An eerie read with great characters
Private Rites is set in an apocalyptic world where it always rains but people are still expected to go on with their day-to-day lives. It follows three sis... READ MORE
An apocalyptic story that is maybe too real..
A big thank you to the publishers for an advanced reading copy.
Julia Armfield does such a good job at focusing on the trivialities that survive in a worl... READ MORE
Another Julia Armfield masterpiece
Julia Armfield is one of my new favourite authors, she has a way of completely drawing you in. I loved the three daughters in the story and how different t... READ MORE
Synopsis
From the bestselling author of Our Wives Under the Sea, a haunting, heart wrenching novel of three sisters navigating queer love and faith at the end of the world.
There’s no way to bury a body in earth which is flooded
It’s been raining for a long time now, for so long that the lands have reshaped themselves. Old places have been lost. Arcane rituals and religions have crept back into practice.
Sisters Isla, Irene and Agnes have not spoken in some time when their estranged father dies. A famous architect revered for making the new world navigable, he had long cut himself off from public life. They find themselves uncertain of how to grieve his passing when everything around them seems to be ending anyway.
As the sisters come together to clear the grand glass house that is the pinnacle of his legacy, they begin to sense that the magnetic influence of their father lives on through it. Something sinister seems to be unfolding, something related to their mother’s long-ago disappearance and the strangers who have always been unusually interested in their lives. Soon, it becomes clear that the sisters have been chosen for a very particular purpose, one with shattering implications for their family and their imperilled world.
Publisher information
- Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
- ISBN: 9780008608071
- Number of pages: 336
- Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 26 mm
- Weight: 220g
- Languages: English
Customer Reviews
View allBrilliant follow up to "Our Wives Under The Sea"
Julia Armfield’s second novel after her Polari Prize winning “Our Wives Under The Sea” which in its brief but heavy in water-metaphor pages managed to comb... READ MORE
A new classic
I think this book should become a modern classic. The way Armfield depicts dystopian London is astonishing. The city is rendered so cleary and eerily, so o... READ MORE
Haunting and beautiful
I previously read Our Wives Under the Sea and found it both gripping and unsettling in a way that made it stay with me to this day. Although Private Rites ... READ MORE
An unsettling masterpiece
Set against the backdrop of a climate crisis, three sisters reunite in the wake of their (very rich) father’s death. That’s really all I want to say about ... READ MORE
Atmospheric
Julia Armfield’s third book is just as atmospheric as her previous works. As precise as ever, her ability to create unease engulfs the reader in this story... READ MORE
A dark tale of apocalypse and family
Three women, Isla, Irene who are sisters and their half-sister Agnes have gathered together after their father’s death. None of them like each other and ra... READ MORE
Spectacular cli-fi
When I found out Julia Armfield wrote another novel, I
favourite book of the year so far
this is both my most highly anticipated release of the year AND my favourite release! julia armfield’s writing is so so beautiful and even though the plot ... READ MORE
rainy girl summer
Thank you to NetGalley and 4th Estate for approving me for one of my most anticipated reads of 2024.
This is a climate dystopia book in which society is... READ MORE
Beautifully dark and twisted
Isla, Irene and Agnes are three sisters attempting to shape meaningful lives from the wreckage of their toxic family life and the fact that they are living... READ MORE
Loved it!
My first experience of Julia Armfield's writing and the eerie sense of catastrophe that flows through her writing, just eking out enough space to make it u... READ MORE
The best account of everyday apocalypse I've ever encountered
'Any horror story could be said to work in two pieces: the fear of being wholly alone and of realising that one has company.'
Julia Armfield’s debut novel... READ MORE
The end of everything in every way
After devouring everything else Julia Armfield has written, this book was my final stop before the inevitable depression that comes with having finished a ... READ MORE
They were not kidding when they said this was unsettling!
They were not kidding when they said this was unsettling, reading this during 4 days of no water was an experience.
Julia Armfield has a beautiful way ... READ MORE
Hands down one of my favourite reads of the year so far
Private Rites has been pitched as a queer King Lear at the end of the world and that rings true in this bleak, blistering and brilliant book. It combines a... READ MORE
Impressive
I read an eARC of this book so thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley.
I found myself really enjoying the writing in this book but it felt li... READ MORE
Julia Armfield Does it Again!
If you enjoyed the sogginess and lesbianism of Our Wives Under the Sea, you’re in for a treat because Private Rites is queerer and damper than ever.
I l... READ MORE
sadly not for me
I started this book twice because it sounded so intriguing, and because it has been raining solidly for the last two days so felt I was in the right frame ... READ MORE
Brilliantly grim
The queer woman, dystopian, futuristic, horror, based on King Lear novel, that has many quotable moments, the thoughts on types of swimming, especially tho... READ MORE