Salt Slow is a collection of stories about bodies and the bodily, mapping the skin and bones of its characters through their experiences of isolation, obsession and love. Throughout the collection, girls become insects, men turn to stone and bodies are picked apart to make up better ones. The mundane worlds of cinemas, schools and university towns are invaded and transformed by the physical, creating a landscape which is constantly shifting to hold onto the bodies of its inhabitants. Blending the mythic and the fantastic, the collection considers characters in motion – turning away, turning back or simply turning into something new.

Praise for Salt Slow:

'Delightful and discomfiting’  The New Yorker

"Quiet, meticulously crafted collection that's a sign of even greater writing to come." Buzzfeed 

'A haunting and deliciously unsettling debut' Attitude Magazine

'Armfield’s collection is exemplary as she pushes the limits of reality into beautifully eerie and unsettling worlds' Booklist

'Unsettling, uncanny, and utterly delightful debut.' Publisher's Weekly

'Dazzling...Each piece is filled with magic, insight, and a rare level of creativity that mark Armfield as a fresh new voice of magical realism.' Kirkus

'What makes this collection so exciting? It’s the way the salty, unsentimental underpinning of mythology combines itself with clinical contemporary observation... It’s the way that although Armfield is full of tenderness for her characters, she never apologises on their behalf; she’s fantastical, but never less than realistic. It’s the satisfying lean towards the macabre and the metamorphic, balanced by wickedly clever prose and a sense of humour that seems to loom up like a character in itself, having been lying in wait in a corner all along. It’s the way that every paragraph balances itself perfectly between the visceral and the cool.' The Guardian 

'Armfield’s prose has a stupefied ease. It glides along so stylishly, incurious about the blood intermittently spilling across its palms...Armfield’s skill is clear, by reflection, in her dialogue: lively and tense, its plausibility plays eerily against the narration either side.' The Telegraph

'Armfield’s language is crisp and elegant, and the icy poise of her prose evokes a tingling dread.' Literary Review

'Writers should take risks and Julia Armfield does this fearlessly with stories that unnerve and delight in equal measure. There are echoes of Leonora Carrington and Carmen Maria Machado, but Armfield's distinct voice is her own: singular, visceral and eerie. A hugely impressive first collection.' Sinéad Gleeson author of Constellations 

'Visceral, fierce and beautifully unsettling, Armfield's writing has an astonishing power. This collection haunted me with its brilliance.' Elizabeth Macneal, author of The Doll Factory

"These are brilliantly addictive, barbed, illusive stories. Armfield creates a cleverly unsettling, iridescent world that we are all the better for entering." Irenosen Okojie author of Speak Gigantular and Butterfly Fish

'Salt Slow is exemplary. A distinct new gothic, melancholy, powerful and poised.' China Miéville, three time winner of the Arthur C. Clarke award for Science Fiction 

“Reading this collection is the only thing you need to do right now. Reading this collection is the only thing you ever need to do. Armfield is an enormous, gut-wrenching talent.” Daisy Johnson, shortlisted for Booker prize 2018

"Unafraid to venture beyond realism’s limits, Julia Armfield refashions our contemporary existence as an eerie, care-worn dreamworld, taking our quotidian anxieties and desires and handing them back to us empathetically remade. 'The Great Awake' is an oneiric delight, and Armfield is a significant, exciting talent." Sam Byers, author of Perfidious Albion

"Julia Armfield has created a portrait of urban ennui that unfolds through an impressively sustained conceit. It’s a bold feat of the imagination which, despite being so elaborate, never feels contrived. Her work has a timelessness to it, and a generosity of emotion that’s brave and affecting. There’s an intensity of voice driving [these stories], as well as a strong visceral quality that adds to the effect."  Chloe Aridjis, author of Book of Clouds

'The stories in this collection look at women’s bodies and their experiences in society with an eerie, otherworldly lens – for instance, in them women become insects, men turn to stone, cities become insomniac and landscapes are always shifting. For fans of Carmen Maria Machado, Sophie Mackintosh and Megan Hunter.' Elle Magazine

'These exquisitely written stories are like the quietly surreal lovechild of Anne Michaels and Julio Cortazar. Both moving and poetic, salt slow introduces Julia Armfield as a writer to watch and greatly admire.' Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti

'Visceral, fierce and beautifully unsettling. Armfield's writing has an astonishing power. This collection haunted me with its brilliance' Elizabeth Macneal, author of The Doll Factory 

'Eerie, otherwordly...For fans of Carmen Maria Machado, Sophie Mackintosh and Megan Hunter' Elle (UK)

'Sometimes a collection of short stories comes along that keeps you up through the night, pulling you from one page to the next, Julia Armfield's debut collection is just such a book' SFX

'Armfield weaves dark fairytales from women's hidden lives. She tells her stories in a kind of dreamy realism, magic brushing along their edges. There's a distinct echo of Angela Carter' SFX

'Remember the name Julia Armfield as this will be the year that salt slow bubbles under then pops up everywhere on best-of lists and literary prizes...this short story collection expands on Armfield’s ability to meld the psychological with the physical. Read just one tale from this disturbing collection and you’ll find yourself clamped between the collection’s jaws. Because, visceral, perturbing and exhilarating, these stories are something really special.'  Stylist

'Julia Armfield's debut is wild and wonderful, full of mythical transformations that take place in the most ordinary of contemporary settings.' Irish Daily Mail