Private Rites BY Julia Armfield

From the bestselling author of Our Wives Under the Sea comes a haunting novel of three sisters navigating queer love and faith at the end of the world.

With the earth perpetually flooded, burying a body is impossible. This reality, along with most others, has faded into history. It has been raining for so long that the lands have reshaped themselves, submerging old places and reviving ancient rituals and religions.

Sisters Isla, Irene, and Agnes have not spoken in years. When their estranged father, a renowned architect celebrated for his contributions to this new, waterlogged world, passes away, they find themselves unsure of how to grieve amidst the world's ongoing collapse. Their father had long withdrawn from public life, and his death brings them back together in the grand glass house he designed, his crowning achievement.

As they sort through his legacy, the sisters feel their father's presence within the house’s walls, a magnetic pull that stirs up memories of their mother's mysterious disappearance. The glass house, it seems, holds more than architectural marvels—it harbors secrets and a sinister influence that has attracted the interest of strange, enigmatic figures throughout their lives.

As the sisters delve deeper into the house’s secrets, they realize they have been chosen for a specific and alarming purpose. This revelation threatens to unravel their understanding of their family and the precarious world they inhabit. In this eerie and evocative tale, the sisters must confront their past and the looming threats to their future in a world where everything, including their survival, hangs in the balance.