I loved it too! Excellent debut, I’m so excited for what Julia Armfield does next.

I absolutely adored the woven timelines of Miri attempting to connect with Leah post-return, Miri grieving the declining health of her mother, and Leah slowly revealing what happened under the sea. I love a good slow burn where speculative elements (a bit of soft sci-fi, fabulism, etc) are used as rhetorical vehicles to expose the literary themes of the story. Idk why but I just love books that utilize that structure/genre.