Linea Maja Ernst

Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg

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

A beautiful and sensuous book that stayed with me long after I read it

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

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.

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

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

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

An intense, confrontational and in every sense interesting novel about the fragility and (for some) fluidity of identity

Linea Maja Ernst writing about opulent dinner parties and the heady magnetism of midsummer forests is sensory and atmospheric

A perfume dream of a debut about the wild force of friendship

Waist Deep might be this literary year’s first full fledged miracle

A completely superb and playful contemporary novel … Its pages ooze life lived, the gallery of characters is razor-sharp, the dialogue is flawless and the spry cultural references tie it all neatly together into a drama worthy of Virginia Woolf

Linea Maja Ernst writes about sexual desire so well that it turns her readers on... at once silly and fragile, flirtatious and sensitive

The sort of book you’ll devour... If you’ve ever stared down the barrel of “real adulthood”, unsure of what it’s “supposed” to look like, then you’ll relate to this one

[A] lush translation… In spite of its contemporary setting…Waist Deep thrums with something more timeless and folkloric… the dialogue [is] filled with sharp and witty observations

[Waist Deep’s] sun-soaked setting and languid literary vibes are ideal for this time of year

Beautifully evocative and supremely readable, Waist Deep is a top tier holiday read

Five friends from university; seven summer days in a lakeside cabin in Denmark. A chance to swim, sunbathe, flirt, read and recreate the magic of their youth. 
 
At least that’s what Sylvia had hoped. But then her friends arrive with real jobs, kids and partners. Worse, Esben (her decades-long crush) and Karen announce their plan to get married at the end of the week. As desire and anxiety swirl, and the wedding day approaches, will the group achieve their arcadian dreams or will everything come tumbling down?

Linea Maja Ernst

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