Long Wave

by Daisy Johnson

A hypnotic and haunting work of fiction about losing yourself and finding your family, Long Wave is the finest novel yet from Booker Prize-shortlisted Daisy Johnson

'Elemental, fundamental, irresistable... Her greatest achievement yet' Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Close to the shore is the uninhabited, wild, with only a storm-beaten lighthouse for shelter. Ori was found there as a small child with a handful of stones, no memories and no mother. When she has a baby of her own, the job of motherhood feels immense and sleepless nights begin to shatter her grip on reality. Her head fills with the sound of stones knocking against each other and the mystery of her past begins to unravel, opening up a path to the mother she lost, and the mother she could become.

Years earlier, on a sweltering summer day, ten-year-old Ruth sees a woman and her baby walk into the river and disappear. But she is the only witness, and the water yields no trace. Ruth’s mother, Edith, locks her daughter away – first to restrain these wild imaginings, and later, when she falls pregnant, to hide the shame. Ruth longs to escape and dreams of the nearby island, where she and her baby can finally be free.

Told with mythic power and lyrical precision, Long Wave is an extraordinary novel of longing and loss, rebirth and survival.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Novels

256 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 2, 2026

About the author

The author of Sisters (2020) Everything Under (2018) and Fen (2016).

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Everything Under, her debut novel.

Winner of the Edgehill prize for Fen.

She has been longlisted for the Sunday Times Short Story Award and the New Angle Award for East Anglian writing. She was the winner of the Edge Hill award for a collection of short stories and the AM Heath Prize.

Reviews for Fen:

"Within these magical, ingenious stories lies all of the angst, horror and beauty of adolescence. A brilliant achievement." (Evie Wyld)

"There is big, dangerous vitality herein - this book marks the emergence of a great, stomping, wall-knocking talent" (Kevin Barry)

"Reading the stories brought the sense of being trapped in a room, slowly, but very surely, filling up with water. You think: this can't be happening. Meanwhile, hold your breath against the certainty it surely is. " Cynan Jones

"I've been working my way slowly through Fen and not wanting it to end - Daisy marries realism to the uncanny so well that the strangest turnings ring as truth. The echoes between stories give the collection a wonderfully satisfying cohesion, so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I cannot wait to see what she does next." (Sara Taylor, author of The Shore)


Reviews for Everything Under:

"Everything Under grabbed me from the first page and wouldn’t let me go. To read Daisy Johnson is to have that rare feeling of meeting an author you’ll read for the rest of your life." (Evie Wyld)

"Surprising, gorgeously written, and profoundly unsettling, this genderfluid retelling of Oedipus Rex will sink into your bones and stay there." (Carmen Maria Machado)

"Daisy Johnson is a genius." (Jeff VanderMeer)

"Hypnotic, disquieting and thrilling. A concoction of folklore, identity and belonging which sinks its fangs into the heart of you." (Irenosen Okojie)

"Everything Under seeped through to my bones. Reaching new depths hinted at in Fen, language and landscape turn strange, full of creeping horror and beauty. It is precise in its terror, and its tenderness. An ancient myth masterfully remade for our uncertain times. " (Kiran Millwood Hargrave)

Reviews

[Marcus (Lit_Laugh_Luv)]

Not sure how I missed this upcoming release, but I'm intrigued!

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[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sweeping epic that is miraculously imagined and prismatically rendered in gorgeous prose. This book feels like a living, breathing thing, a creature all its own. Utterly stunning.

[Joanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

No notes. Immaculate.

The Long Wave is a beautiful, heartbreaking, and ultimately heartwarming story that spans three generations. Daisy Johnson's prose is lyrical and completely captivating, and she has woven together a narrative that is quietly mesmerising from start to finish.

At its heart, this is a novel about motherhood, hardship, love, loss, and friendship. We follow Edith, the church's wife; her daughter, Ruth; and Ruth's own daughter, Ori, as each woman becomes a mother, navigates impossible circumstances, and grapples with losing the sense of self she once had. The story unfolds through multiple perspectives and short, non-chronological chapters, but it all comes together effortlessly in a conclusion that feels both inevitable and deeply satisfying.

For me, the emotional centre of the novel was Ruth's unlikely friendship with JP. Their relationship is so honest and tender, and the way they continue to show up for one another, despite both having so little to give, was incredibly moving.

Johnson's imagery is stunning throughout, painting a landscape that feels both stark and hauntingly beautiful. Time and again, the story returns to ‘The Island’, a place that feels almost like a character itself, carrying generations of memories and secrets.

I was utterly enthralled from beginning to end.

[Abbie ✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

An uninhabited island. A storm beaten lighthouse. A woman searching for the mother she never knew while trying to become one herself.

Daisy Johnson really is one of my favourite writers. 💙 Long Wave is a haunting, beautifully written novel about motherhood, identity, grief and the ways trauma can echo through generations.

Told across two timelines, the story follows Ori as she struggles with the overwhelming reality of new motherhood while fragments of her forgotten childhood begin to resurface. Alongside her story is Ruth’s, whose life is forever changed after witnessing an unimaginable event one sweltering summer’s day. The way these narratives slowly intertwine is absolutely wonderful.

Daisy’s writing is as lyrical and hypnotic as ever. There’s this constant sense of unease that runs through the novel, but it’s balanced with so much tenderness and humanity. I loved how she blends the ordinary with the uncanny, creating something that feels both dreamlike and emotionally raw.

This is the kind of book that completely gets under your skin. Quietly devastating, deeply atmospheric and impossible to stop thinking about. Another easy five stars from me!!!

Thank you to the publisher for gifting me a proof copy x

[Resh (The Book Satchel)]

Daisy Johnson is a fantastic writer! Her latest, Long Wave, is no exception. Throughout the book, I felt sad, like I was engulfed in a fog and can't find my way out. It is the story of motherhood, the burden of searching, the generational trauma, cyclical patterns, all told through nature which holds memories and people whose lives intersect the main characters. It is the story of mother Edith and her daughter Ruby—who wants to leave but later always sees home as something on the horizon—and Ruth's daughter Ori—whose life is shaped by Ruth's actions and decisions. The writing is certainly the strongest part of the book.

I think I went in expecting something like Daisy Johnson's Everything Under and Sisters (Highly recommend both! They made me fall in love with Daisy Johnson's writing). This felt different, perhaps less lyrical (yet lyrical), less atmospheric (yet atmospheric), more heavy and intense.

Thank you to the publisher for an ARC. All opinions are my own.
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[Sam Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fuck. Omg fuck.

This has broken me. And I will never stop thinking about this book.

What a beautiful and broken collection of lives living amongst each other, contributed to each child’s downfall. Generational trauma for the lord’s toughest soldiers, omg.

I am so thankful to Riverhead Books, Edelweiss Books, and Daisy Johnson for advanced access before US pub day - October 13, 2026.

FUCKKKKKK. The bodies of water in this small town keep secrets. They hold memories both light and dark, leading onto generations for time to come.

Told in a fragmented timeline, we hear the story of Edith, her daughter Ruth who is just longing to get away and stretch her wings, her neighbors - Dillon and his crew of brothers who are always getting into trouble, and a cast of other characters that Ruth meets throughout the course of her troubled life.

Ruth longs to visit the Island that collects the waters from their riverside town, believing she could create a utopia of sorts for her friends and family as they live off the land. In an attempt to journey out to that foreboding land mass, she stumbles upon a woman with a baby strapped to her chest, walking determinedly into the rushing river, only for her to vanish in the blink of an eye.

This canon event sparks a world of unrest in her home, as her mother, with good intentions, means to lock her away from harm and the light of day. But bad decisions are made and Ruth finds herself with child at the hand of one of Dillon’s brothers, with no intent on caring for his soon to be born child, or co-conspirator in the equation.

As Ruth’s life continues to spiral downward, the Island stays ever present on her horizon as the solution to her problems, but her cataclysmic ending sparks a new beginning for her daughter Ori, and the cycle forever continues.

This was such an incredible narrative and I cannot stop thinking about each character and the role they played in the OG plot. This isn’t my first Daisy Johnson read, and it’s definitely not my last.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The island spins around her, fills her; she keeps walking. As she walks she gives away some of the island - it belongs only to her, beloved, the clear and ringing dream of it that she has had since she was a child in that house by the river - and she thinks: I am walking to Ori. I am walking back to Ori. They will return to the caravan now, to JP and Nora and Leo. She walks fast. She will take her daughter back to real life now and save them both from the tangles of this swooping dream. She walks, thinking of the words she will say to Ori. I love you, I will always love you. The ground ahead is _

 
Daisy Johnson’s debut novel “Everything Under” – which I described as a literary novel of the liminal, language, leaving and legend was longlisted for the 2018 Booker Prize and went on to be (my view) deservedly shortlisted – making the author the youngest author ever to have made the Booker shortlist.  It drew on folklore, Greek myth (the latter perhaps too explicitly) and was heavily based around the rivers and canals (from the author’s adulthood) – with both the folklore and water influences also obvious in her earlier short story collection “Fen” (an Edgehill Prize winner) which drew on her East Anglian childhood.  Her second novel “Sisters” was more of a Shirley Jackson inspired horror-literary mash up and perhaps a little less to my tastes.
 
This her third novel is said in the acknowledgements to have been born “out of grief and exhaustion” and is I think heavily inspired by her matrescence.
 
Carrying on my alliteration I would describe it as an elusive and littoral literary tale of leverets, lightouses and (matri)lineal inheritance. Carrying on with the heavy influence of water on her writing (even “Sisters” had a coastal setting) a river is key to the novel – both as it passes near a town but also its eventual flow to the sea, and an Island located at its mouth.
 
The novel begins with Edith “mother of long gone Ruth” packing up her belongings in the soon to be vacated vicarage after the death of her husband (Ruth’s father) and coming across a folded page of an encyclopaedia with the entry for ISLAND and we are told “Edith does not know it but the fold bisecting the page, creating a sharp straight edge, resembles the river as it leaves the town and cuts up through the paper of the country until it reaches the end of the land and opens itself up into sea and sea and there, as with the word: an ISLAND.”
 
We then switch time and viewpoint to Ruth (ten years after she left home) and finally visiting the Island with which she was obsessed as a child, having left her own daughter Ori near a lighthouse and now walking back to her.
 
And then we are with Ori – waiting futilely for her mother and eventually rescued (and later we find implicitly adopted) by Min – a scientist researching the brain patterns of the hares on the Island (and how they both relate to day time activities and even seen to pass across generations).
 
Returning to Ruth’s childhood adolescence, we first find an incident when, as  a ten year old, she sees a woman (with a baby in a sling) walking into the river – an incident that she is told she must have imagined (no trace of either can be found) but knows she did not.  And when a few years later – via a fling with the older brother of a neighbour/friend – she becomes pregnant, Edith literally locks her in her room – Ruth eventually absconding with her friend/neighbour and having the baby Ori – eventually living in a form of hand to mouth communal living (with another single Mum Jupjaapun) from which one day she and Ori disappear (for it becomes clear the Island) never to reappear (although Jupjaapun – now a long haul driver – mounts a CB enabled search for her).
 
And we also spend time with Ori – post the disappearance of a mother she can barely remember – now in a same sex relationship and newly a mother, but struggling with what seems to be the solitary burden of motherhood (despite her partner Eva’s professed best intentions) as well as with her own memories.
 
The narrative spools across the three characters (as well as others like Min, Eva, Jupjaapun and the latter’s own son Leo) and across time – although time is a fluid concept in the novel as is place (the setting at the same time clearly England (for example with named motorways) but also more of a legendary location (particularly on the Island itself where the fantastical and history seem to meld to the factual present).
 
Images and themes recur across each of the storylines – the line (and associated fold) of the river, the lighthouse on the Island, some scattered fragments of paper like snow, regular signalling by knocking (for example in the wall between Ruth and her childhood neighbours, between Jupjaapun and her radio broadcasting daughter Nora) and in particular the idea of knocking two stones together to signal one’s location (including in a variation on the Marco Polo game).
 
The recurrence of these images across all three stories for me linked also to the way that Min believes that baby hares seem to have dreams replaying the experiences of their mothers (which cannot be known to them).

And the three storylines and generations converge in what I thought was a very strong ending by a river – in the same place where Ruth had her experience as a ten year old, and confirming to us the way in which birth is also a form of rebirth and generational experiences can meld.
 
Overall I thought this was a strong novel – one I will be interested post publication to read wider reviews and author interviews which I think will increase my appreciation further.
 
My thanks to Vintage for an ARC via NetGalley and paper ARC
 

The hares are like fish on land, so fast. There is a fire beacon to warn ships off the rocks, then there is a stone lighthouse and at the same time the cliffs are slipping into the sea, here they go, hear the crash of them and how the birds whirr up into the sky. Hares die and live and die. One of the men who works in the stone lighthouse likes to read and he folds the page of his book down to keep his place. The sharply folded page resembles, although he cannot know this, the folded page in the book which Edith will one day find.

[Helen_t_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

Hypnotic and haunting, dreamy and atmospheric, this literary fiction has prose which is by turns earthy and prosaic, poetic and lyrical. It is rich in metaphor and with vivid and elemental descriptions of a natural world which not only reflects the internal drama and turmoil of its characters, but also the cyclical, repeating patterns between the generations of women.

Cleverly and intricately constructed, it takes a fragmented, non-linear line, echoing backwards and forwards in time, but by the novel's conclusion every single thread has been pulled together in such a skilful, masterful way.

Takjng the long view through three generations of women in one family - Edith, Ruth and Ori - this is an exploration of the complexities of motherhood, and parent-child relationships: the echoes that travel down the years; the way that becoming a mother shapes and defines a woman's life and that of her offspring; the best intentions and bad choices of both parents and children; how mothers love and care for their children, to an obsessional abstraction in some cases; and how they can be beset by maternal doubts and a sense of inadequacy that can completely overwhelm.

The novel also looks at family and the way you may have to forsake it to find yourself; how family can be "found" and nontraditional in its shape and form but provide the love and care you crave and need; how friendship and human connection is powerful and important; and, how fragile the human mind becomes when tested to its very edges.

Character driven and dreamlike, it is an utterly immersive read, which I wolfed down in just two sittings. I was so involved in the intensity of the piece, savouring the brilliance of the prose, and finding relief at the quiet note of hope at its conclusion. Highly recommended.

[Juliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

“They don’t know who I was before. I was a whole person. I was a child once and then I had a child and that child killed the child I was. That is insane.” Daisy Johnson his back with her third novel (/fifth book), Long Wave, and honestly thank god. We need her emotional acuity and vivid prose and generous imagination. We need more compelling, deeply original stories about motherhood and families both born and chosen, what it means to want to run and what it means to choose to stay. Long Wave is all of those things, and is also a wildly thrilling mini-epic, a non-linear saga of three generations of mothers each reckoning with what has come before, as well as their compulsions, their fears, their failings. It is in places a criticism of a world that at worst denigrates, and at best fails to actively support, mothers, in a way that actively damages not only them but their children too. And it is a book of great, annihilating loneliness, the oldest inheritance, as well as how we might overcome that through community, through love, through writing stories and cooking meals and studying the dreams of hares. And of course it is about longing: not the watered down popular idea of yearning but something deeper and darker. I sobbed my way through the last thirty pages or so (court papers are due any day now, Daisy Johnson) and I loved every minute I spent in these pages. Easily one of the best and most captivating, moving novels of the year so far. “Sometimes she thinks she is going mad longing for a place she has never even been. Well, it is every place that is not that house and town, it is beyond the door of her bedroom and at the end of the river.”

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Long Wave tells the story of three generations of women and mothers in one family: Edith, Ruth and Ori. Ruth is the central, pivotal character in the novel yet she refuses to be pinned down or hemmed in. Like a hare, she’s a runner, never happier than when she’s free to roam the wilderness with her friend Dylan, disappearing along the culvert that passes the bottom of her garden, flows into the river and out to sea and The Island.

There are nods to Virginia Woolf (e.g. a lighthouse, stones and rivers) references to hares and to art when Ori visits the Sistine Chapel. Fairy tale allusions appear too, especially Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel locked in her tower.

Johnson often combines the profound with the prosaic in a way that I find entrancing. She does have her own unique voice but at times I’m reminded of Ali Smith - perhaps because the two authors touch on similar themes and ideas - juxtaposing the natural world with the unexplained.

She writes about matrescence in this novel with such accuity that I could feel it in my bones. That and the hide and seek terror and sensory overwhelm of the places frequented as a parent of young children: the trampoline park or the open-air swimming pool. Johnson also addresses post-partum depression and describes it so well as experienced by Ori after the birth of her child.

Sound and unseen communication is another frequently used device in the novel. Ruth knocks on her bedroom wall to transmit messages to her friend Dylan, Ruth and daughter Ori bang stones together so they each know the other is close, and a pan lid is tied to a young boy in case he sleepwalks again.

This is a haunting, lyrical novel about motherhood, survival, loss, found family and renewal. I absolutely loved it.

[Ben Dutton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daisy Johnson burst onto the literary scene with her 2018 Booker shortlisted folk-horror tinged, emotionally charged Everything Under (which I loved). Her second novel turned purer horror into poetry with Sisters, which felt linguistically more experimental than her debut, and again showed her skill at crafting miniatures on the page, little short stories within larger narratives, that create a beautiful whole. It is no surprise that Johnson is also a talented short story writer.

Long Wave then continues the Johnson tradition of imbuing the everyday with a splash of unnerving energy. This is a story of mothers and daughters. Our focal point is the stories of Ori and Ruth, their primal need to protect and nurture, and the loss and longing that this can bring. Through finely crafted sentences Johnson pulls us into their world, a world familiar to us, and yet imbued with something more that makes Long Wave dazzle.

I absolutely adored Long Wave and read it through in one sitting. Daisy Johnson has become one of our finest novelists, and I am already looking forward to her next work.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.

[Jamad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Long Wave follows two women across different generations whose lives are connected by motherhood, loss and a mysterious island just offshore. Daisy Johnson writes beautifully about landscape and memory, and there is a quiet intensity running through the novel that lingers long after the final page.

This was a frustrating read because there was so much to admire. The writing is consistently good, I liked the characters, I was drawn into the central mystery, and the sense of place is wonderfully realised. Yet the fragmented timeline completely undid it for me. Rather than gradually building the story, it kept pulling me out of it. I spent too much time trying to work out where I was instead of becoming immersed in what was happening.

Perhaps it was simply my mood, and I may well feel differently in a few days’ time. At the moment, though, this felt like a good book that had been messed around.

Fragmented timelines can reveal a story piece by piece until everything clicks into place. Here, for me, the pieces never quite stopped feeling like pieces.

[Jen Burrows · Rating 3 out of 5]

Long Wave is a novel of themes and imagery - motherhood, freedom, the river, the island, hares - it's all arranged with care, but I felt a little as if the characters existed to forward the themes rather than the themes breathing through them. It all sits a little on the surface.

Johnson's hypnotic prose is at its best when it's pulsating with the heat of summer, dark and dreamy, all feeding into an inevitable, cyclical rhythm. The atmosphere shimmers off the page. I found myself waiting for the unexpected, for the story to break its own spell, but it unfurls exactly as you expect it to, right until the very end.

A gorgeous mood piece, absolutely. But one that left me wishing for a little more depth to dive into.

*Thank you to Netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review*

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a beautifully atmospheric novel that is about motherhood, memory, grief, and the ways patterns can repeat across generations. The Island serves as both a real place and a powerful symbol throughout the story, drawing the characters together in unexpected ways.
The writing is the standout feature. It's poetic, immersive, and filled with striking imagery that gives the novel an almost dreamlike quality. However, I did find the fragmented timeline difficult to follow. The frequent shifts between characters and different points in time meant I had to reread several sections to keep track of what was happening. While I can appreciate how cleverly the novel is constructed, it wasn't the easiest reading experience for me. Overall, it's a rewarding book with a memorable ending, but one that asks a lot from its readers.

[Jess Twibey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one was hard for me to rate, the entire book comes down to motherhood, being a mother, having a mother, missing a mother, and if I read that description I’d be like ah I don’t think this book is for me, but it’s gripping from the start and you should absolutely read it. 3 generations of woman and their journey through life, making mistakes and doing their best, a mixed timeline, it’s a hard realisation of the difference you perceive as a child or as a mother, the exact same moment meaning such different things and what that leads to. I can’t say what I expected, but although the ending didn’t have a big happy ending where everyone came back together, it was more realistic, still a happy ending, just not the one you’d expect and that somehow made it better.

[Lex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic Daisy Johnson, it all comes together at the end and I cry a lot

Written in her beautiful lyrical style, this is a novel of many narratives and timelines woven together, three generations of women and a reflection on motherhood and struggle, what it means to dream and search for someone, how to carry the burden of searching, how to hold the knocking stones and say ‘I am here’.

A departure in the sense of very little magical realism apart from some time slippage and hares, but obviously still brilliant.

Disclaimer I work for PRH (not in production), opinions my own!

[Jo Rawlins · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

Unusual and almost myth-like. Told in fragments across characters, mostly through three mothers: Edith, Ruth and Ori, 'Long Wave' is exceptionally well structured.

The characters are conflicted, intriguing and complex.

This style is often disorientating and hard work that doesn't pay off for the reader but here it really does. I thought the ending was exceptional.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.

[SAFCSHARK · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an incredible book, moving, thought provoking and in the end hopeful.
Loved every minute of it.

[Shan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Long Wave’ tells the stories of three generations of women who are all challenged by motherhood. It’s about mothers and daughters, family, and complicated relationships.
Daisy Johnson writes beautifully again and is a master at creating atmosphere. She draws you in with her language, imagery (especially of water and islands), and excellent storytelling.
I read this slowly so as to savour it; it is just so beautiful! This surely deserves another Booker nomination!
Thank you Riverhead Books and Edelweiss for the ARC.