THE SALT GROWS HEAVY by Cassandra Khaw (Nothing But Sharpened Teeth)

Release Date: May 2023
General Genre: Adult Horror, Dark Fantasy
Subgenre/Themes: Body Horror, Immortality cult, creepy isolated village, plague doctors, mermaids

Writing Style: Fast pace, intricately detailed, luscious prose

What You Need to Know: A vengeful mermaid and a plague doctor journey together through unknown territory. They stumble upon some children playing a murderous game and follow them back to an isolated, eerie village with "ageless" children who worship a trio of sinister surgeons.

My Reading Experience: I am thoroughly flabbergasted. I finished this book with my jaw dropped open and a full-on reader's high. There is so much I love about this story, I honestly don't know what to say or where to start. I suppose I can appeal to readers who have enjoyed the cartoon, "Over the Garden Wall". This has that same "stumbled into a creepy village where the townsfolk are up to something" vibe while still being whimsical/playful but in a dark, creepy way. I hope that makes sense! It will be to the right people.
However, this doesn't stop at "eerie & creepy", it transitions quite earnestly into savagery and horror. This is not your garden variety "beautiful mermaid falls in love with a handsome prince" although there is love and the mermaid is beautiful if you're a horror freak like me and you are drawn to mythological creatures stereotypes obliterated in favor of a more realistic, terrifying version but there is not a "handsome prince". The mermaid is in love with a plague doctor with a sweet disposition, a quiet demeanor, and an androgynous sex appeal.
These two encounter a terrifying scene, some children hunting another child for sport. Eventually, they find themselves in a village filled with odd children and uncover a secret cult led by a trio of evil surgeons. The plague doctor's identity is revealed and the mermaid's inhuman qualities come to light.

Cassandra Khaw has a seductive, skillful way around descriptive words that make her characters pop right off the page. I was immediately absorbed into Khaw's setting and bewitched by the luscious, elegant prose. I enjoyed the feeling of being lured into a fairy tale knowing that Khaw is a horror writer and anticipating something sinister. It delivers so deliciously.

Final Recommendation: I love this book so much. It's only February with a whole year of horror books ahead of us but don't worry, I won't let anyone forget this one.

Comps: Over the Garden Wall, Grimm's Fairy Tales... I've never read anything like this!

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the review copy of this title.

I was a huge fan of Khaw’s Nothing But Blackened Teeth when I read it last year so as soon as I heard about The Salt Grows Heavy I was already dying to read it. The mix of gorgeous prose and nauseating gore in this masterpiece of a novella makes it such an intriguing and captivating reading experience.

The only reason I have deducted a star is because I wish that there had a bit more to the story in the end. I wanted to know more and see more of the main characters journey before the epilogue and felt that the ending seemed a bit abrupt but otherwise this was a fantastic read that I have already started telling people to keep an out for once it releases later this year.

What a strange, disgusting, absolutely spell-binding book. At once like curling up and reading a favorite fairy tale (the old ones, where it all goes wrong before it goes right) and digging around through grave dust. Hope in its strangest, darkest form. Incredible!

Sometimes you pick up a book and it feels like the author wrote it just for you. That's what this book feels like to me. It's the perfect blend of horror and folklore, a story of a mermaid (if you want to call her that) that is properly strange and unknown and terrifying. All told in the most lyrical of prose. I fucking LOVED it.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Tor Publishing for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. Congratulations to the author, Cassandra Khaw, for publishing this piece.

The Salt Grows Heavy (3.5/5 stars) follows the story of a vicious mermaid and her plague doctor companion as they flee the country that she has destroyed. They stumble onto a village full of children and their “saints” where they must reckon with the bloodshed hiding under the surface.

Marketed as a horror-genre work, The Salt relies on grotesque imagery and a paced, psychotic reveal of the antagonists’ true villainy. Gore heavy descriptions land especially well as Khaw leans into the monstruous mermaid—her observations highlight her otherworldly bend. This prose-heavy book is written beautifully (another reflection of the main character), and Khaw accomplishes strong characterization in a short amount of time.

This said, some of the psychological twists feel a bit predictable; I anticipated most of them. Because of the atmosphere, this does not overly detract from the story—the audience can still gain much from the read—but a prospective reader may benefit from knowing this.

If you like short, grotesque horror with unconventional characters, this read is for you!

3.5 stars (purely due to personal taste)

Whew, this is definitely more dark than my usual read. About 75% of the way through my stomach was turning from the gore, so heavy TW for gore, death and violence.

But overall I was very interested in the storyline, and read it very quickly because of this.

The two MC were very interesting, and I really enjoyed their relationship. Both of them had really excellent back stories.

A really cool and dark mermaid take.

If you're into creepy horror, this is for you.

4.5 rounded up.

A haunting, gorgeously gory novella, and a great way to start out the new year. While at times the plot and characters feel more like a vehicle for the prose than features of the story, I couldn't help but sink into the writing style and the world, which invokes the darkest sides of fairy tales and folklore. In particular, every description of the unnamed mermaid's abyssal home had me enraptured.

The budding relationship and connection between the two monsters was oddly endearing; the softness of their affection for one another helped take the edge off the darkness of the rest of the content, creating a fine balance that made this a very enjoyable read. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for the author's future works.

I have been eagerly awaiting this book since I first heard about it, so thank you so much to Tor Nightfire for sending me this! I enjoy Cassandra's prose so much; it is unapologetic and demanding, and it asks the reader to make an effort to navigate the story.
There is very little handholding, you are dropped into the middle of the story without much explanation, and you move headlong into this relationship between a mermaid (for lack of a better word) and a mysterious plague doctor. They travel to a creepy village and things ramp up from there. I don't want to give anything away, as I found this novella very rewarding and wouldn't want to spoil the experience for anyone.
A caveat: If gore is not your thing, you may want to avoid this one. The descriptions of violence are long and detailed, so bear that in mind. But I found the story and the characters fascinating and there are some heartbreakingly beautiful phrases in here. Thoroughly enjoyed this.

This is such a weird, gory little thing. I don't know that it does the critical work she wants and the language is a bit much at times, but the images are so killer and as a fairy tale retelling it's fabulous.

The Salt Grows Heavy is rich with descriptions, gore, and ingenuity. As a story about a murderous mermaid attempting to tear down the cult of three grotesque surgeons, this novella delivers on body manipulation, viscera, and terror. While the prose is luscious, it is also overwrought with high-brow vocabulary that often took me out of the story. While I like the usage of uncommon words, there comes a point where it's a detriment to the story. I also found that, when it came to world-building, there was next to none.

While I believe this would do better in a longer format, I enjoyed the gruesome visuals and romantic undertones. I'd recommend this to anyone looking for a quick and bloody read.

WOW. I am completely blown away by this little novel.

There's not much more I can say about the plot that wouldn't risk spoiling, but the overall premise is that a mermaid and a plague doctor are travelling and come across a very strange village in the woods.

I read Khaw's Nothing Like Blackened Teeth and it was unfortunately not for me. I'm so glad that I gave her another shot, because I loved every page of this book. It's not often that I don't want a book to end, even when I love it, but I wanted to keep reading about our two main characters!! I couldn't get enough of them.

After murdering her husband and burning his kingdom to the ground, a mermaid adventures with a plague doctor into the sinister woods... to face off against men who believe themselves saints, children who kill each other and come back alive, and sinister blood sports. Will they be able to survive what awaits them? This was a bloody good time, it was absolutely fantastic. I ate this up. It was gory, beautiful, haunting, and romantic all the while being part gothic fairytale. A mermaid who has been trapped finally frees herself, she consumes human flesh that helps regenerate her wounds. After all the abuse of her husband she is finally free and goes journeying with the plague doctor she’s known. They make an unlikely pair. Together they find themselves facing off against a sinister village with surgeons who torture and kill all in the name of being gods. This was absolutely the perfect read that makes me want to know more about these characters, like I would absolutely love more books featuring their story, their past and what the future holds for them.

*Thanks Netgalley and Tor Publishing Group, Tor Nightfire for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

This book was as vicious as teeth and as rich as heart's blood. It's hard to call it gory, because it doesn't portray flesh and blood and bone in anyway that is truly recognizable as human, though it's close enough to be unsettling. The prose only added to the atmosphere of otherworldly-ness, lyrical and severe all at once. This novella was paradoxically both difficult to continue and absolutely riveting. I simply could not look away. I loved reading this, though I'm not sure I can qualify the experience as enjoyable. Khaw packs a beautifully succinct punch with this one, but check the content warnings.

I requested a digital copy in order to sample the prose on my phone (since I don't have a eReader) before requesting a physical copy for review. My review will be based on the physical ARC I read (if I qualify)

Thank you, Tor Publishing Group, for allowing me to read The Salt Grows Heavy early.

I really wanted to love The Salt Grows Heavy but somehow I couldn't get into the story. I liked the writing but it just wasn't enough for me to engage with the story as much as I wanted to. I hop other readers will love this book more than I did.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of The Salt Grows Heavy.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the premise other than I found it creepy so, of course, I had to request it.

This is a dark, other worldly tale of a mermaid and a plaque doctor traveling together through an unforgiving landscape.

The sort of BFFs stumble upon a village of young children and three surgeons called 'the saints.' You know this isn't going to end well.

When the mermaid and her companion discover the saints aren't who they claim to be, they realize that in order to survive they must reveal their true natures. And the aftermath isn't going to be pretty.

The Salt Grows Heavy introduced me to a lot of new words including taiga and bezoar. I'm all up for Googling words I don't know to learn and add to my vocabulary but when I find myself doing it more than 3x, something's got to give.

The narrative is short, but wordy, the prose almost purple-y. Flowery, three to four syllable words and four to five sentences to describe emotions and feelings and how frigid the winter is can get repetitive. And fast.

The paragraphs are laden with these types of bloated descriptions and emotions, offering vague exposition to the mermaid and plague doctor's background.

I would have loved to know more about the mermaid and the plaque doctor's history. When the story begins, it feels like we're starting from the middle and all that came before it doesn't matter, which is not true.

The past is just as meaningful as the present.

When the main characters arrive at the village, almost immediately, the cruelty and bizarre nature of the saints and the children they rule over is stark, macabre, almost obscene.

If you're the faint of heart, turn away from The Salt Grows Heavy.

The descriptions of gore, violence, and bloodshed can be triggering and traumatizing if you're sensitive to such subjects.

I'm not, but I'm not like everyone else. I'm also not a mermaid or a plaque doctor, though their uniqueness is something I can relate to.

You'll find common themes touched upon in this novella; subjugation of women, patriarchal society and manipulating beliefs to suit the agenda of a society ruled by men to crush the weak and the voiceless.

Despite the violence and the horrors the main characters endure, the author reiterates that survival is dependent not just on hope but hope and loyalty to each other, that friendship matters, that when you find your tribe, you can survive just about anything, no matter how strange and unique you are. And that is a mantra I do believe in.

I wanted to LOVE this but the prose reminded me way too much of my teenage tumblr rp years where one description needed to be ten words long for no reason other than it made me feel smart.

"How do you kill any religion? You convince its flock that their shepherds are wolves."

A murderess Mermaid and a non-binary plague doctor go off on an adventure after leaving the Mermaid's slaughtered kingdom behind. They quickly stumble into a youthful cult led by sycophantic self-proclaimed saints that are obsessed with reaching immortality through the butchery and resurrection of children. The Salt Grows Heavy is a story of monsters trying to stop monsters in a horrific world.

What a gruesomely morbid novella. I went into this expecting the story to be dark but I wasn't prepared for the level of vividly described gore that was liberally rendered. While I didn't mind it, not everyone is going to be appreciative of this peculiar carnage and should take that into consideration before choosing this story.

The Salt Grows Heavy is rich in mythology, I'd be interested in reading more stories set in this virulent world. The prose was heavily laden with similes, metaphors, and uncommon words. I often found myself thankful for having the e-book version so I could quickly look up definitions every few pages. If you prefer more straightforward writing this may hinder your enjoyment of the novella.

Overall, I found myself disturbed but enthralled by The Salt Grows Heavy. Dark, riveting, and quickly consumed, I'd recommend it to those who are fascinated by the unusual and have a stomach for the gore.

Thank you Netgalley and Tor Publishing Group for giving me an advance readers copy in exchange for an honest review. All quotes come from an arc and may change.