“—did you know that we all carry the ocean in our bodies, just a little bit? Blood is basically made up of sodium, potassium, calcium—more or less the same as seawater, when you really get down to it. The first things came from the sea, of course, so there’s always going to be a little trace of it in everything, a little trace of salt in the bones.”

Another one I’m kicking myself for waiting so long to pick up. Though, I did finally read this during, not to be pedantic, *excruciating personal circumstances*, “Our Wives” became surprisingly therapeutic at times. A stunning portrayal of the lengths people go, lies we tell ourselves, realities we stow away in our attempts to harness grief and hold desperately to love. Haunting verse, visceral descriptions, dynamic character sets, and a tangible, unraveling dread. This book is real fucking sad. Sometimes books need to be really fucking sad to adequately mirror the harder parts of life. But there was an innate beauty nestled comfortably in Armfield’s prose, making the pain worthwhile. Are we human, or are we Hell? In the end of it all, what matters is how deep we loved.

There’s a lot of subtext. If reader perspective driven concepts and conclusions are not fun for you, maybe steer clear of this or, at the very least, give it the credit it’s due: horror is subjective, always has been. While Armfield’s “Wives” is not an “in your face gore-splosion, jump scare, stabby stabby terror bonanza,” it deserves it’s place within the genre for the insidious and (maybe) cosmic-y underbelly. This was a great novel, even if it wasn’t quite what it seemed.

4.5/5 While I’m going to read this again in the future to gain a different understanding as the freshness of my mother’s passing clung to every word, I appreciated the unique brevity it provided me.