Private Rites by Julia Armfield

Private Rites

A Novel

Julia Armfield

Flatiron Books · Print & ebook · December 3, 2024

A NEW YORK TIMES Editors' Choice!

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Who it’s for
Julia Armfield brings Shakespearean inheritance, queer love, and a world reshaped by rain into uneasy company.
Genres
Lesbian Fiction, Literary Fiction, Sibling Stories
Published
Flatiron Books, December 3, 2024

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About this book

A NEW YORK TIMES Editors' Choice! From the BELOVED, AWARD-WINNING author of Our Wives Under the Sea, a speculative reimagining of King Lear, centering three sisters navigating queer love and loss in a drowning world “One of my FAVORITE NOVELS of the past few years.” —Jeff VanderMeer, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING author of Annihilation It’s been raining for a long time now, so long that the land has reshaped itself and old rituals and religions are creeping back into practice.

Continue reading

Sisters Isla, Irene, and Agnes have not spoken in some time when their father, an architect as cruel as he was revered, dies. His death offers an opportunity for the sisters to come together in a new way. In the grand glass house they grew up in, their father’s most famous creation, the sisters sort through the secrets and memories he left behind, until their fragile bond is shattered by a revelation in his will. The sisters are more estranged than ever, and their lives spin out of control: Irene’s relationship is straining at the seams, Isla’s ex-wife keeps calling, and cynical Agnes is falling in love for the first time. But something even more sinister might be unfolding, something related to their mother’s long-ago disappearance and the strangers who have always seemed unusually interested in the sisters’ 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 imperiled world.

Sisters and Storms

Julia Armfield brings Shakespearean inheritance, queer love, and a world reshaped by rain into uneasy company.

Come here for

  • A King Lear reimagining shaped by queer love, sisterhood, and a drowning world
  • Family secrets and strained bonds with a speculative edge

Expect

  • A layered family drama threaded with loss and foreboding
  • Intimate emotional tensions against an imperiled world

Where it sits

Lesbian Fiction66%
Sibling Stories35%
Literary Fiction33%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Lesbian Fiction
  • Sibling Stories
  • Retellings & Pastiche
Authors
Julia Armfield
Publisher
Flatiron Books
Published
December 3, 2024
Format
Print & ebook
Reading lane
Lesbian Fiction