Waist Deep

Waist Deep is an enjoyable page-turner, a sympathetic and perceptive examination of the importance of moving on and letting go … an evocative debut about the fragility and fluidity of adult friendship * Observer *
A beautiful and sensuous book that stayed with me long after I read it * Daily Mail *
Waist Deep trembles and flashes with hot emotion, confusion and pangs of longing. I loved its cast of characters and their reaching towards what their lives might be together, and alone – Amy Key
Waist Deep is such an enjoyable read: clever, wry, and incredibly sexy. In Linea Maja Ernst’s gorgeous prose, translated superbly by Sherilyn Hellberg, the clotty intersections of desire, ideology, and ennui are explored in the most vividly luxuriant surroundings. I was totally besotted with these characters, and desperate for a dip in a lake by the end. – Susannah Dickey
Sensuous and vivid. Simmering with sexual tension and with an undercurrent of deep longing - for a different life, for each other - there is something here that every adult with a group of friends will recognise (even if they won’t admit it). A book to devour and enjoy every minute of – Laura Kay
Delicious, and provocative – Esther Freud
I devoured it in a day and absolutely adored … I loved spending time by the lake with these characters watching them fall in and out of love with each other – Brydie Lee-Kennedy
Hot, heady and beautifully queer, Waist Deep pulls you under and doesn’t let go. I felt every breath, every touch, every impossible desire. It’s a novel that lives in the body – Lotte Jeffs
An intense, confrontational and in every sense interesting novel about the fragility and (for some) fluidity of identity * Information *
Linea Maja Ernst writing about opulent dinner parties and the heady magnetism of midsummer forests is sensory and atmospheric * Soundvenue *

Linea Maja Ernst

Linea Maja Ernst is a staff writer at the Danish newspaper Weekendavisen, where she writes about literature, pop culture, and private life. Waist Deep is her debut novel and was an instant bestseller upon its publication in Denmark in 2024.

Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg

Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg is a writer and literary translator based in Copenhagen. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker and The Paris Review, among other publications. Her translation of Jonas Eika’s After the Sun from Danish was longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley.

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