I’ve been saving my early copy of Private Rites because I enjoyed Julia Armfield’s previous two books so much and knew this one would be great as well. But I finally picked it up just before release day (December 3) and as expected, it was a moody, unsettling, and memorable experience.

Armfield is reimagining King Lear, but you don’t need to be familiar with the Shakespearean source material to understand or appreciate this story. It’s set in London during a more advanced stage of the climate crisis—everything is wet and flooded, it’s always raining, and the city’s infrastructure is struggling against the water’s effects. We follow three sisters, all queer, daughters of a famous architect, who learn of their father’s death early in the novel and are then forced together to grieve and process and handle the logistical particulars of his passing. Meanwhile they are each navigating their own careers and love lives and internal states, and as the story progresses, it becomes clear that something is happening with the house that their father left behind. I don’t know that the ending quite worked for me; the pacing really picks up in the last few chapters and I found myself a little confused with everything that was going on. But! That didn’t change how I felt about the book overall. Julia Armfield is SO good at creating atmosphere and building unease, and I know I will remember the slightly foreboding feeling of this novel for a long time to come.

Rating: 3.5 stars (rounded up to 4)

I was thrilled to see that Julia Armfield was releasing a new book and felt honored to receive an advance copy prior to its official publication date. As a fan of her previous work, I went into Private Rites with high expectations, and while I enjoyed the overall story, there were moments that left me wanting more.

The three main characters—Isla, Irene, and Agnes—are well-developed, each grappling with love, loss, and family secrets as they navigate their father’s death and the ominous, ever-rising floodwaters. The atmospheric tension Armfield is known for is present, with the haunting glass house setting and themes of estrangement and reconnection giving the novel a unique edge.

That said, the pacing was uneven for me. Several times, the narrative built up an intriguing sense of unease, only to resolve too quickly or quietly. This pattern left me a bit disappointed as I anticipated a more sustained tension. The final chapter, however, delivered—it was suspenseful, gripping, and full of the impact I had hoped for throughout the book. I just wish more of the story had matched the intensity and stakes of that final twist.

Overall, Private Rites is an engaging read with beautifully crafted characters and a strong conclusion. While it didn’t quite maintain the suspense I was looking for, I’m glad I had the chance to experience this novel before its release and would recommend it to those who enjoy family dramas with a touch of the uncanny.

This had such a good ominous vibe throughout the whole story. The author is great at writing a gothic vibe and making you feel uneasy. There were parts of this story's plot that really engaged me, but there were also very slow parts where I was disinterested. It was a slow storyline until about 70% of the book before the ending got really crazy. The ending was very intriguing, and I think it was a solid end to the story.I liked the main character, but she felt very far away from the reader. I wanted to know more about the whole cast of characters, but they felt very surface level. Unfortunately, this story's plot won't stay with me but the vibes will. Thank you to Netgalley and Flatiron for an eARC in exchange for a review.

private rites does a lot of things that I would usually enjoy a lot. the writing style here perfectly conveys the sense of dreariness that suffuses a world that is constantly raining and constantly drowning. the nonlinear narrative that is executed with a kind of ease that the jumps in time happen before you even realize that it's been done, lending a quality to the writing that also makes it feel like you're just being carried away in a current that you have no choice but to be swept away in. each of the three sisters feels fully realized and complex, and yet their unreliable perspectives on how they not only view themselves but also on how they view each other makes reading about them compelling.

but these are probably where the positive highlights of the story end. private rites definitely feels more like a character study/"no plot just vibes" kind of story, yet is also trying to tack on these elements of cult/folk horror in a way that comes on at the end of the book in the last chapter far too quickly and escalates too fast for it to work. it almost seems like the author is aware of this whiplash in genre shift, adding a cheeky line how it feels like what happens in the end is part of a different genre altogether. the problem is that the prologue presented a glimpse to a narrative that I was immediately interested in, and the rest of the book went on to tell a story that was completely different in tone and what it was trying to accomplish that I had begun to believe that the author had just abandoned the promise of the prologue altogether. while the last chapter comes back to what was promised in the prologue, it happens all too quickly and happens without the proper build up sprinkled throughout in between, so the payoff doesn't work. if the elements that make up the reveal at the end of the book were brought in much earlier (and not just 'oh wow people sure are weird!!' then I think it could have worked a lot better, but ultimately I left private rites feeling unsatisfied. the weird horror that I feel like I was promised didn't really happen and that kind of does have to be the biggest disappointment. I think the author just really had to lean into the weirdness a bit more. go be more unhinged!!

Lush, atmospheric, and eerie, this queer King Lear re-imagining set in a drowning world captivated me.

Three estranged sisters are drawn back together after the death of their wealthy father also has them rethinking their strange childhoods and the disappearance of their mother.

I think part of what makes this so eerie and perfectly literary horror is that it straddles the divide between possible and impossible so neatly. The climate crisis and the breakdown of modern life, pervasive as a slow leak dripping away, creates a horrifyingly realistic backdrop - in my opinion, horror is done best when it's terrifyingly real. There are some strange, supernatural moments here, but they fit so believably into the world Armfield has constructed.

Sometimes I feel like I'm not quite smart enough for Armfield's books - I'm sure there are so many layers that I'm missing that a careful reader could find and dissect. But much like her debut, Our Wives Under the Sea, I was left feeling confused, unsettled, and thoughtful - in the best way. I recommend if you're looking for a character-driven, queer, literary horror.

4.5 stars.

4.5 stars.

To preface this review, it needs to be said that I will read whatever Julia Armfield writes. I know it sounds hyperbolic to say that you’re someone’s biggest fan but I truly feel like I am Julia Armfield’s biggest fan and will remain as such for the rest of my days.

Private Rites is what Intermezzo should have been but with that classic Julia Armfield twist. It felt like a tangible embodiment of melancholy and because I read it during the middle of a week-long rain storm, that melancholic feeling pervaded my every thought.

Armfield’s talent for crafting vivid descriptions with her unique prose is what always enthralls me and Private Rites was no different. Her use of water to create a world unfamiliar to ours and placing very normal human beings within this unfamiliarity was a stroke of genius and kept my attention throughout. (Whenever I say “throughout”, I think of my 12th grade English teacher telling us what a cop-out that phrase is but I’m afraid I will never give it up).

As the reader, we are plunged into this world along with these three queer sisters and have to manage their differences simultaneously. I couldn’t decide if I actually ended up liking any of the sisters as individuals or if they were all so compelling that I had no choice but to end up caring for them and their plights. Their sense of survival amongst daily life and the death of their father was the underlying tone of the novel and added a familial bleakness to the prevailing feeling of melancholy.

I dearly loved this story, the dystopian climate, the complicated relationship between the sisters, and the horrific turn that it took near the end. For those searching for a book along the lines of a sad, less scientific, more personable Annihilation, look no further.

Thank you to NetGalley and Flatiron Books for an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really really REALLY liked this. I was a little startled by the ending, which seemed oddly rapid, though the eleventh hour revelation is really well calibrated in terms of being surprising and not entirely predictable. I do feel that it's a little overwritten, especially in the early chapters, which feel dense in a kind of self-protective way -- like, don't see through me! -- and I was somewhat frustrated by the reliance on childhood trauma as an explanation for the thorny personalities of the three sisters, especially Agnes. They're more interesting than that -- always returning to the trauma of being eight and your dad being mean to you is a good way to sell out your characters. And the idea that this is King Lear retelling is a joke. Is every book with three sisters in it King Lear? Does that make Little Women King Lear plus one?

All that being said! I really enjoyed this. I was charmed by the relationships the sisters have with their significant others, and I liked the cozy-nasty chamber drama feel of this wet world. The idea that this book is wise about climate doesn't really ring true for me -- it's an oversimplified allegory, but as a real setting I liked what it did for the characters. The moments of drama are super exciting, especially the incident that occurs to Agnes on the ferry -- maybe the best passage in the book. All in all, in the words of another King Lear-inspired-story, you aren't serious people! But you are good for an evening's entertainment.

Julia Armfield writes great atmospheric prose. This tale about three sisters takes time to explore each of their current lives while touching base on their traumatic and, at times, odd childhood that included religious fanaticism and abandonment.

All three sisters are queer, and I enjoyed that each had their own relationship dynamic, with their childhood and family wounds showing up in different ways.

Armfield kept me guessing throughout. Their dad's house was almost another character with all the history held there and the pivotal moments that happen within its walls.

I don't want to BASH this book too harshly, so I will keep it short. Minus the sweet...unfortunately...

This book was the most beautifully written piece of garbage that I have ever read. The plot did not make sense, the characters were extremely uninteresting, and overall it was just boring. I actually let out a sigh of relief once I had finished it.

My hopes were high because I loved Our Wives Under the Sea SOOOOOOOO much, but this was the letdown of the century.

“The problem has always been the way he left them alone in the house for long periods, the way he spoke to his daughters, the way he pitted one against the other—left each to struggle for a love they should have known they couldn’t earn.”

A reimagining of Shakespeare’s King Lear with a climate fiction backdrop, this book is positively brimming with the deep, chilling, and slightly-suffocating-in-the-best-way prose that I’ve come to expect with Armfield’s work.

The story revolves around three sisters who have very complicated relationships with each other, as they grapple with the death of their father. We are treated to each of their perspectives, and it’s fascinating to see how they view each other and the situations they find themselves in. Each of their personal lives are a bit (or a lot) in shambles in addition to their layered familial circumstances.

The setting, an almost dystopian-feeling post-climate catastrophe world where it constantly rains and the water levels continuously rise to the point of destruction, adds to the chilling hauntedness of the story. The damp and dreary mood set by the environment perfectly pervades the rest of the story, highlighting each character’s dysfunction.

The book also touches on a variety of social issues that include love and loss, collective apathy, mental health and caregiving in the face of widespread trauma, cultish influence, and socioeconomic inequality. I love that water has played important roles in all of Armfield’s books, and I am excited to see if this continues in whatever she publishes next!

Thanks so much to Netgalley and Flatiron Books for the advanced copy!

This book has a lot of moments where it goes absolutely crazy on the literary level. I also have a whole bunch of problems with it, which is really disappointing, because I love Julia Armfield, I think she’s one of the only authors I’ve ever seen consistently pull off short stories, and Our Wives Under the Sea is incredible. Sophomore book slumps don’t discriminate, it seems. I’ll always think she’s an excellent writer, and the writing on the sentence level is not the problem. It’s literally everything else.

Private Rites opens with a 2-page prologue. The problem is, by the time I actually got through 200+ pages of introspection and family trauma, I had completely erased the prologue, which is a very different tone and suggests possibly supernatural elements that are not at all present in the rest of the book, from my mind. I’m sort of embarrassed to admit it, but when I went back and flipped through to see if I had been missing any hints for that lazy ending, I realized I had ended up thinking it was a prologue from a different book I was reading at the same time. I forgot it was even part of Private Rites. In my view, this book is deeply confused and disconnected from itself.

These bits simply don’t fit together—a half-assed rendition of King Lear (my favorite Shakespeare work) that really has no claim to being King Lear beyond the incredibly basic concept of three daughters and an inheritance from their father, a rain crisis creeping towards the premise of Waterworld, the rise of cults during the rain apocalypse, and three different underwritten relationships between each of the sisters (I couldn’t tell Irene and Isla apart or remember who was with Morven and who was with Jude until like 100 pages) and their partners that are deeply inconsequential and taking time away from what could be an absolutely breathtaking work about the sisters and their relationships with each other and their father. Especially the cult stuff.

I’m sorry, but to me, that ending just made no sense. The thread with the sisters incorrectly interpreting moments from their childhood is insanely cool—or, it would’ve been, if there were any actual hints as to what was going on and not just the aggressive and constant implications of these moments being the thing they weren't. The bits and pieces threaded through about the cult stuff are nowhere near prominent enough for any of this to work, and at no point did I take the hints as plot-relevant. I think I would have needed ~100 pages more for this to work with everything the author wanted to include.

There was so, so much good buried in here, and I’m just so disappointed with the execution, though I do believe it’ll work really well for a lot of people. I think for me, this hit close to home in a way that I needed more from: My half-brother is 20+ years older than me, and I could connect with Agnes’ struggles relating to her sisters, in particular the way that the older siblings have a total disconnect from Agnes’ experiences and see their father in a very different way than she does. My half-brother idolizes our father, while I have personally chosen to have a very limited relationship with him. This book was so, so real in so many ways, but I felt like it wouldn't let me in on the level it needed to, if any of that makes sense. The tone is too consistently detached.

I started this book literally the day my dad died, I love that for me. Because as you may have read from the synopsis, these sisters' dad has just died. Unlike my own dad, this guy sucked, which made it a lot easier to handle. Here's the thing: I enjoyed the sisters' stories. They were quiet, and dealt with a lot more than just the passing of their father. They dealt with the world around them, which was also quiet in its ending- climate change was wreaking havoc, but people still lived mostly in denial. Honestly so much of the story tracked. We'd definitely do that, right? But the women had to grapple with the messiness of the world, their own complicated romances and friendships, their relationships with each other, the loss of their dad and their broken relationships with him, and just their general life trajectories and where they wanted to go from here. It was pretty good stuff! And then... the end happened. It was so (for me, anyway) out of left field that I still haven't a clue what went down. I simply don't get it. I feel like other people did though, so if you are other people, help a girl out? If you don't get it, like me, the rest of the book is still worth reading, so at least there's that!

Bottom Line: Quiet and reflective, telling the stories of three sisters coping with personal and global loss.

“The great washout of the world and no sense that it might have been otherwise.”

Not sure I even have the words for this one, but I’m going to try. I feel so incredibly lucky to have received an advance copy of this book. Julia Armfield has such a talent for making her characters feel real and for pairing this raw humanity with her horror writing. This story of three sisters is set against the backdrop of a world that is slowly drowning, blanketed by an endless rain and the rise of water that threatens to swallow every person and place in town.

As with Our Wives Under the Sea, Armfield has a particular skill in writing about grief that doesn’t look and feel the way people think grief is supposed to feel. In the case of this book, it’s grieving the loss of someone who maybe only ever made your life worse. It’s finding space for grief, relationships, love, family, and the simplest of everyday tasks when the world is quite literally falling apart around you.

The horror elements are sprinkled in somewhat subtly at first, growing as the story progresses and we see the way these seemingly random occurrences string together to culminate at the end of this book. This leaves a simmering feeling of uneasiness in the reader that doesn’t reveal it’s true source until much further in.

I cannot speak highly enough about this book, and I encourage everyone to preorder it and give it a read when you can. It’s one that is going to be sticky in my mind.

It was a solid three stars book. It didn't really bring some special or new element, but it also didn't disappoint in any of the element it come up with.

I have seen Julia Armfield's name around but hadn't read anything by her, so I was very excited to receive an early copy of this one. I enjoyed this book -- I thought that her writing was lovely and descriptive and the slightly dystopian vibe of the book was really unsettling.

I love books about complicated family relationships and this one was great for that. I really liked learning about each of the sisters, and how the death of their father impacts their lives.

I will definitely be checking out Julia Armfield's backlist and look forward to reading more from her in the future!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book!

This was a profoundly mixed but beautiful bag, but I think I'm still very obsessed with it?? The ending made up for the draggy, baggy middle, and the writing was consistently exquisite (as you'd expect from anything Armfield). I can't believe I've found a climate fiction novel that I 'like'?

I had read and was disappointed with Our Wives Under the Sea earlier this year, but I really wanted to like Armfield's sapphic litfic. I wish, however, that this book was not so slowly paced because I found myself growing incredibly bored until the very end. It was a drag—admittedly a well written one—and I feel that perhaps Armfield's litfic does not work for me as I had hoped.

Lesbian retelling of King Lear in a climate change dystopia should have been an instant sell for me but why do interesting books have to be so SLOW! I guess I was expecting something plot driven but this is an old-fashioned character study, focusing on a trio of queer sisters whose lives are unraveling in different ways in the aftermath of their father's death. I find that the novella format of "Our Wives Under The Sea" was able to highlight Armfield's elegant prose while building a sense of sticky, uncanny tension. The tension in this story is less supernatural: the oppressive atmosphere of the prose a clear metaphor for the rising waters and heating air. There is a sense of restless energy emendating both from the story and the characters, scenes of half-finished arguments interspersed with omniscient musings from the perspective of the city itself. Still, it's hard to buy into a novel in which both the characters and the author seem to lack motivation to make it to the end. If the big reveal had come sooner than the last 20 pages, and if it had been more successfully foreshadowed throughout the story, perhaps the previous ~250 pages would have felt less like a slog.

Three sisters attempt to navigate their complicated relationships to each other in a world that is beset by an endless deluge of rain, When their neglectful father dies, Isla. Agnes, and Irene come together to try and put to rest his affairs and re-establish communication between themselves while coping with grief, anger, and lingering resentments. All may not be as it seems, however, as hidden behind the riveting family drama sinister forces may be watching the family with malign interest, waiting for the opportune moment to set their own agenda into motion.

I felt that Private Rites came together a little slowly, but once everything clicked I found myself fully engrossed with the minute to minute details of the lives of the three sisters and their struggles coping with the very complicated relationship they had with their father and between themselves. The backdrop is astonishingly captivating, a world that is literally drowning, infrastructure falling apart, greed and con artists sapping funds for ill-advised solutions, and so much more is effortlessly brought into being via Julia Armfield's deft writing. Allowing the perspective to shift from sister to sister as the norm was a clever move, especially when the usual pattern is broken up by unexpected points of view like the sister's partners or even the top-down view of the unnamed city itself as it succumbs to the downpour. My only issue is that the ending seems to come about very abruptly, the menace that had been building didn't seem to resolve itself in a way that I found as satisfying as I had hoped, though all the great character work and worldbuilding allowed me to easily move past it.

A very good read, one I can heartily recommend.

A King Lear retelling set in a world where it's rained for so long that society's changing. Three sisters estranged falling back together.

I really liked the vision of this. I always like a Shakespeare retelling and the idea of a world shaped by the never ending rain intrigued me. But I was disappointed that the world and rain didn't play a larger role. I was so intrigued by that all and thought it was a really unique idea but I felt that it was actually quite minor.

The plot started to feel repetitive to me by the end. The end was underwhelming. I didn't feel super connected to the siblings, nor did I care about what happened to them.