This is a special Signed Indie Exclusive Edition, and has limited quantity available

Private Rites Signed Indie Exclusive Edition

Julia Armfield author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:HarperCollins Publishers

Published:11th Jun '24

It is possible we may get another copy in future, but unfortunately unlikely

This hardback is available in another edition too:

Private Rites cover

The thrilling new 2024 novel from the author of Our Wives Under the Sea

This is a special signed & dedicated indie exclusive edition which features a bonus chapter. Please note that although Private Rites has a publication date of June 11th, any orders placed for this signed & dedicated edition will not be dispatched until after June 21st when we will be hosting an event with Julia Armfield.

'Stunning'DAZED

'Her prose sparkles' ELIZA CLARK

'A book of extraordinary sentences' MEGAN HUNTER

From the bestselling author of Our Wives Under the Sea, a haunting 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 is a fact consigned to history along with almost everything else

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.

'Eerie and emotive'GQ

‘A book of extraordinary sentences, set in end-times which feel bleakly real yet pulse with a tireless, tangible force of love’ MEGAN HUNTER

'Slick and slippery, Julia Armfield's latest novel is the author at her finest' KRISTEN ARNETT

‘Armfield’s signature cocktail of deadpan wit and staggering beauty’ ALICE SLATER

‘Julia Armfield is an era-defining writer’ KALIANE BRADLEY

‘An astonishing ambitious novel’ SARVAT HASIN

'Lyrical, haunting, unsettling' PAUL TREMBLAY

‘A book of extraordinary sentences, set in end-times which feel bleakly real yet pulse with a tireless, tangible force of love’ Megan Hunter, author of The End We Start From

‘Delivered with Julia Armfield’s signature cocktail of deadpan wit and staggering beauty… a sharply observed exploration of grief, family and the end of the world as we know it’ Alice Slater, author of Death of a Bookseller

'This characteristically eerie and emotive novel explores faith, legacy, and grief for loved ones and for the world as we know it' GQ

'Armfield writes the kind of books that stick with you for life. I am proud to be one of her biggest fans’ Kristen Arnett, author of With Teeth

‘Witty, brutal … Private Rites has the elemental power of a thunderstorm and the thrilling emotional honesty of a first kiss. Julia Armfield is an era-defining writer’ Kaliane Bradley, author of The Ministry of Time

‘Stunning’ Dazed

‘An astonishing ambitious novel that won't let you go’ Sarvat Hasin, author of The Giant Dark

‘Lyrical, haunting, unsettling, and J.G. Ballard-ian in apocalyptic scope … Deeply, passionately, messily human’ Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World

'Exquisite … Armfield exceeds herself, invoking profound, existential quandaries of kinship, romance, and urbanism in a prismatic tale of end-times … A masterful feat, and a joy to read – Armfield is awe-inspiring’ Peter Scalpello, author of Limbic

‘A sonorous portrayal of the family as a drowned world. A narrative voice so crystal-cut with dry affecting truths … that every page guillotines you with its wisdom’ Tom Benn, author of Oxblood

‘Armfield does with sentences what other people do with paintings. Beauty aches through every word of Private Rites’ Heather Parry, author of Orpheus Builds a Girl

'Intimate, unnerving and sopping wet’ Alison Rumfitt, author of Brainwyrms

ISBN: 9780008608033-SIE

Dimensions: 222mm x 141mm x 16mm

Weight: 270g

208 pages