‘The Salt Grows Heavy’ by Cassandra Khaw is a blood and gore filled reimagining of the classic mermaid tale.

A mute mermaid is forced out of her kingdom after her ravenous daughters devour the king and the people. She finds herself in the company of a plague doctor as she flees. She encounters a series of horrifying events that test her resilience and morality.

The prose here was surprisingly beautiful while still being quite visceral. I loved the mood that this book created as well as its memorable main characters.

Cassandra Khaw weaves eerie and disturbing tales with the perfect amount of lyrical beauty. I loved this one so much and am already eager to re-read it for all of the things I missed.

Quote from Cemetery Dance review -

In its bleak yet lyrically stunning style, The Salt Grows Heavy is among the most cleverly crafted stories I've ever read. It's insightful and mind-bending. Peculiarly pragmatic at times, an impressive feat for a grim reimagining of a tale typically told with consent between the mermaid and humans and ending in a marriage that can only breed happiness.

This was macabre and delightfully dark. A twist on mermaids I didn’t know I needed. Every novella gets better and better.

Really, really beautifully written, wow. The prose is so lyrical and rich, and flows along wonderfully. Very much a horrific fairytale.

I just cannot connect to this author’s writing. I didn’t enjoy Nothing but Blackened Teeth by this same author, but I wanted to give them another chance, however, the writing style just doesn’t work for me. I find it to be very choppy and I can’t picture what’s going on in the story. This book will work better for someone who’s reading taste better aligns with the author’s style of storytelling.

Thank you Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for this arc. All opinions are my own.

Pretentious. Khaw writes this with thesaurus evidently nearby and it’s distracting. When I learned they used to be scriptwriter for Ubisoft it also made a ton of sense because this whole book reads like an indie game cutscene.

I’ve had my eye on this author ever since Nothing But Blackened Teeth came out years ago. This similarly brief nightmare of a novella showcases the growing talent that I and other readers first noticed in her earlier work.

This book chronicles the story of a mermaid (of a kind you’ve never seen in fiction before, trust me) and a nameless plague doctor wandering a bleak, hostile, fantasy world, searching for a place to start anew. Along the way they must battle the elements, semi feral children, and malevolent surgeons with pretentions to immortality. But as they search for some place to call their own, the relationship between these two consummate outcasts deepens from mere dependence for survival into something far more resonant and beautiful.

The world depicted here is uniquely dark and upsetting, it feels fully fleshed out and lived in for all that we only get brief descriptions of it. Khaw's gruesome plot is rendered beautiful with her remarkably unique and poetic language, a major strong suit of this talented writer. The characters make a compelling pair and play wonderfully off each other. The world building is top notch but its in the interactions between our two main characters that this book really shines. This IS a horror story too, make no mistake, there’s some genuinely nasty stuff in here even for people accustomed to the likes of Stephen King and Clive Barker.

But in the end The Salt Grows Heavy is that rarest of birds, a gruesome, macabrely beautiful tale skillfully weaving the disparate threads of both horror and romance into a compelling and memorable tapestry. Khaw spins a story as chilling as it is heartfelt and as frightening as it is ultimately sweet and love affirming.

This is a stunning fantasy horror novella. Khaw reimagines a version of The Little Mermaid where the prince wasn't so sweet and spins a tale, not about revenge, but about the aftermath. The mermaid (for lack of a better description or a name) leaves her husband's kingdom in ruins, accompanied by a plague doctor who is more than they seem. I adored the elegant and imaginative prose, and appreciated the complex motivation of characters who are unapologetic about their natures.

I truly loved this gothic horror romance. My heart swelled with joy many, many times. There is something so incredible about seeing two people who are so meant to find each other become close. The twists and turns of this plot kept me intrigued, but I was really here to watch the characters interact. They both spoke to me on so many levels. This almost reads as a fairy tale--- something old as time, full of magic, and slightly ineffable. The writing style is fluid and flavorful, the world is lush and terrifying, the horror is deliciously off-putting. I would love another short story set in this same universe from such an outstanding author.

It was weird and hard to follow on audio, even with how short it was. The images and descriptions were a little amorphous for me to grasp while listening. Probably better to physically read.

I didn’t enjoy Khaw’s debut but I’m always willing to give a second chance, especially since the synopsis sounded so intriguing. unfortunately I had a lot of the same issues with this as Blackened Teeth in the way the characters are written, so I believe Khaw is just not a match for me as a reader

I didn't really have much idea of what I was getting into when I started reading The Salt Grows Heavy, but the more I read, the more I couldn't put it down. It was dark, beautiful, and haunting. I appreciated the relationship between the mermaid and the plague doctor, the tension between the two building every step of the way. Definitely content warning with the gore and body horror, but I think this story is the perfect length to get drawn into for a sitting.

I'm sure there's a wonderful creepy story underneath all the baroque prose but I had a difficult time getting past it.

A fever dream with angel wings. I got sucked into this eerie, nightmarish fable with shocking imagery and heartstopping prose.

“Perhaps we are as any myths are: protean, impossible, exactly what we need to be.”

The Salt Grows Heavy is a captivating, beautiful, and brutal novella by Cassandra Khaw. The plot follows a mermaid and a plague doctor as they leave behind the ruins of a kingdom devoured by her children. They think they have left the cruelty of mankind behind, only to discover a group even more merciless.

This novella is so visceral, and every word used makes the violence tangible while still giving a fairytale-esque feel. It’s nearly poetic, and I love how the main character’s eloquence is also a character choice: “When you do not have the option for conversation, there arises a wealth of time for personal instruction.”

Both nostalgic and savagely satisfying, The Salt Grows Heavy reminds the reader of childhood stories while nodding to the original gruesome stories they stem from.

Incredibly beautiful writing, but I just didn't feel like it was super enjoyable for me. I would definitely recommend to someone who reads more horror though!

Content warnings: gore, blood, death, vivisection, self-administered surgery, eye trauma, surgery, body horror

A mermaid and a plague doctor go to investigate a cult that worships surgeons. There are ageless children, there are sacrifices, there is self-administered surgery. It’s gross. It’s beautiful. I loved all one hundred pages.

I have so many highlights in this one. The story is relatively simple as suggested by the blurb, but it’s the word craft that really makes this one stand out. The world is dark, and the detail-work is exquisite. I love the subtle shifts in how the mermaid refers to the plague doctor that make this romantic with an ending that I’d consider “happy at some point, just not now.”

I’ll definitely be returning to this one to immerse myself in gorgeous writing that depicts biology in all its gross brutality.

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw is a dark and creepy tale, perfect for the fantasy reader who wants a quick read tinged with horror.

The book opens in the aftermath of a slaughter. The narrator’s vicious half-prince mermaid children have devoured their father and his kingdom. She makes a companion of a plague doctor. Together they burn what remains then head off together into the wilderness.

And there, in the woods, things get violently weird.

The companions come across a community of mostly children, a bit reminiscent of Lord of the Flies. At the urging of the plague doctor, they attempt to free the children from the saints, who lead their society and hold them in their thrall.

Ultimately, I wanted to like this novella more than I did. I went in with the expectation of a vicious killer mermaid, but ended up with a woodland commune full of body horror. I didn’t enjoy that plot as much as I would’ve liked a story that revolved more around the mermaid and the plague doctor. If the saints’ community was but one stop of their journey, it would’ve made for a much longer book. But one that I would have found more satisfying.

Thank you to Tor, Nightfire, and NetGalley for the gift of this eARC.

Myths are full of lies. This is not one of them."

So we all know the tale of ' The Little Mermaid', but what if I told you that the story that you know and love is not the whole story, or even the real story?
That the actual story was much darker, sadder and scarier than even the one told by Hans Christen Andersen.
What if I told you in fact that the idea of 'true love' was actually just some PR genius. Propaganda designed to enchant the public and unconditional deviotion to the monarch, while overlooking a marriage between the prince voiceless mermaid as rather than a royal princess.
A piece of propaganda, told
order for you to accept the abhorant behaviours of a prince and his exotic mute wife. The tale of devotion and love to cover one of slavery and servitude.

Cassandra Khaw's novella is a feminist telling of the folktale The Little Mermaid, picking up the narrative after she is already voiceless and married to the prince. Unfortunately, their children being half mermaid have devoured the kingdom leaving nothing but decay and death in their wake. The Mermaid, along with another survivor and the plague Doctor set out on a dark and dangerous quest to find a new home that will be safe and accepting of them as they are two "manufactured" beings.

I personally always hated the story because I couldnt understand or accept why the mermaid would give up her only power 'voice' in order to potentially marry a man who doesn't even know her, and she has no assurance that he feels the same way about her. Khaw's narrative answers these questions by explaining that the mermaid was in fact stolen and made voiceless by the prince, having her tongue cut out of her mouth to ensure she couldn't tell her story and in doing so, making his side of the story the only narrative.

Khaw also incorporates social and cultural critics of christian religion and they ways in which appropriate narratives and then alter them in order to then use stories as a means to control and enslave others. I loved the intellectual depth to this 108 page narrative.
Genre:
LGBTQIA
Literary Fiction
Horror
Feminist
Folklore retelling