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Such a beautiful, lyrical horror/romance novel. I can't say that I quite know what it was all about, my brain can't quite wrap around all of the themes and what they mean. But, for once, it doesn't really matter. I can sink into the beautiful writing and realize that this book will mean different things to different people.

All at once it's a novel about loss, about love, and about grief. About the letting go and the holding close. It is the tale of two women, Miri and Leah, who are separated for six months when Leah's deep-sea mission encounters issues and she is stuck under the sea. When she returns, nothing is as it was. We experience their lives before as flashbacks, their lives during the ordeal, and what happens afterward. Although that seems like a straightforward story, this book is anything but that.

This isn't an easy read, and there are no easy answers or interpretations. This is the kind of book that burrows itself deep inside of you and begs to be talked about. Armfield's prose is delicate, yet fierce; brutal in its imagery yet fragile in its meaning.

It's a book for a particular reader at a particular time, one who wants to take the time to ponder and mull over the different parts of it. If I had read this at another time would I have liked it this much? Maybe, maybe not. I listened to the audiobook, which is fabulously produced. The two narrators give perfect voices to the main characters and make them more relatable to me.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book, all opinions are my own.