With gorgeous writing, I wanted to be full on obsessed with The Salt Grows Heavy. Every piece of it felt like a book which would call to my soul. And while I think there are some truly compelling elements here, I would have just liked pieces within the middle to have more space to lean into the story. I adored the imagery, the ending felt a bit loose and lacked the emotional weight.
Full review on YouTube

This book had me on the edge of my seat, knocked me off my chair and put me to bed.
A fairytale turned on its head, I've never read anything like it. I was fascinated by the body horror so vividly described, the world building within only 100 pages and the characters' richness in depth.

Khaw once again shows how wonderful a writer they are. Every sentence a type of poetry and it spells out a beautifully horrific story. Simply, a mermaid and a plague doctor go on a journey together. This novella has it all for being so short and sweet, in a bloody way. While complete, I could see this being turned into a larger story and I’d be happy to read it.

I was sent the ebook from the publisher based on past reading experiences. This book was so far from what I usually could get in to. I don't read a lot of high fantasy, but this book had some moments where I was just confused with what was even happening. The writing style is beautiful though. I made it 25% into this book before I decided I wasn't invested enough to follow along.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for this advanced copy of the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Take what you normally think of when it comes to mermaids and throw it away. This has nothing to do with cute little sea creatures, it's dark and gory, and beautiful. I'm always left feeling a little "wtf" when I read Cassandra Khaw but I enjoy it every time.

Although this book was only around a 100 pages it felt like it was much longer. I think that it could have actually been much longer if the author would haven't have been so repetitive. It really bogged the story down. With that taken in account the story itself was pretty good. I do wish that it would have been longer than it was so things could have been expanded.

I absolutely loved this dark reimagining mashup of the original little mermaid fairytale and Frankenstein. The pairing of a mermaid and a Plague Doctor was brilliant and new. The prose was elegant and captivating, holding my interest until the very end. The horror elements were intricately woven, with elements of
Dystopian and body horror.

Let me begin with this- Khaw's previous book, Nothing But Blackened Teeth, did not end up to my liking. The premise of The Salt Grows Heavy was just enough up my alley that I desperately wanted to give Khaw another chance. I am so glad that I did.

Moody and vicious, the tale told out in this novella about a plague doctor and a mermaid going on a journey together delves into folklore, belief and the cruelty of humans. But also love.

Thank you to Tor Nightfire and Netgalley for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Book Summary:

You know how the story goes – a prince comes across a mermaid, falls in love with her, and brings her to his castle, where they live happily ever after. This is not that story. The prince is not charming. He is, in fact, merely a monster in human form.

As for the mermaid, she and her daughters have teeth and aren't afraid to use them. After devouring the kingdom, they have little else to do by roaming the lands in the company of a mysterious plague doctor.

My Review:

If you're looking for a dark version of the Little Mermaid, full of body horror and gore, The Salt Grows Heavy is the book for you. In short, Cassandra Khaw has done it again – she's written a spine-tingling horror novel within a complex world. Her shockingly compelling characters make it impossible for readers to look the other way.

I know I'm probably biased here, as Cassandra Khaw is one of my favorite horror authors, but I sincerely loved The Salt Grows Heavy. It was a mixture of many elements, most of which I didn't expect. It made for a delightful (and morbid) reading experience, to say the least!

Whenever I thought I had a hold of the narrative, something seemed to change, and it all slipped away. Despite this, the world and plot made sense, with every turn clicking into place. In a way, I almost wish the story continued, even though I agree it stopped at the perfect ending point.

Highlights:
Mermaid Horror
LGBTQ+
Dark Retelling of the Little Mermaid

Trigger Warnings:
Graphic Details
Body Horror
Child & Animal Death

Body ody ody... horror. To the max. 😳 Honestly that's pretty much what I remember from this book. It was very disturbing and grisly, not a book for anyone who is even remotely squeamish. Honestly, I'm not sure if I even understand the premise of the book completely (Was it horror, romance, fairy tale?... I'm going with all of the above) but, I'm pretty sure, I enjoyed it nonetheless. 😂
🖤
Sometimes the writing felt clunky and hard to get through because of the word choices (I swear I was looking up definitions every few minutes). This took me out of the story and made it harder to really submerge myself into it. When I was immersed, the atmosphere was enjoyably dark and the characters were frankly terrifying, their actions downright horrific at times.
🖤
I'm still confused about some things but overall I thought this was a pretty good book. If you can stomach it, it is a fairly quick read and, without giving too much away, does have a semi-happy ending.

I just didn't understand the point of anything in this book. How did the Plague Doctor and Mermaid meet? What is going on in the weird world they are living in? I just could not care about the characters because you are not really told anything about them that makes you want to care. And this is not an "unlikeable" character, which I am fine with. I just couldn't give a damn one way or the other. The only redeeming factor is that it's a very short read and the writing itself flows well even if it doesn't have me engaged in the story.

Khaw is certainly not short of imagination, but the story feels incomplete somehow. Though the backbone and conceit are wild, I never believied the chemistry of it's two leads, and the climax comes too quickly. With some cuts, it would have made a solid short story, or a nice novel with some expansions, but as it is it feels either overstuffed or incomplete.

The Salt Grows Heavy is an odd, disquieting novella, which, in some ways, brings to mind The Canticle of Leibowitz. Based, very loosely, on the mythology of mermaids, the story centers on a mermaid who married her prince - but instead of dying, living in pain forever, or living happily ever after, or any other ending written before, this mermaid has teeth, and an unending appetite. This novella will make you rethink life and death, and the true meaning of devotion. Due to the way in which such thoughts are presented, it is recommended for ages 16 and up.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I didn't expect to come away from this book thinking about how oddly tender and romantic it was! Which is not to say it would appeal to someone who is looking for those things, because there's a lot of gore and darkness as well, and this is definitely more dark fantasy/horror than romance. It's just that out of that dark story, the friendship that grows up between the narrator and the plague doctor really shines.

I think the juxtaposition of that against the gore and darkness actually makes it feel a lot stronger, where it otherwise might feel unsatisfactory for want of detail.

Khaw doesn't give you a lot to work with here in terms of setup or worldbuilding: each piece of information you get is fed to you a sliver at a time, with many unanswered questions left over at the end. You don't know every step that brought the characters to where they are, nor exactly where they will go from the end -- these things are just sketched in, leaving the horror and the relationship between the two main characters in strong relief.

It would not, on the surface, be my kind of book, but the plague doctor won me over.

I loved this strange (really bizarre!) tale about a mermaid who has been imprisoned by her husband for years, and has now broken free. The story starts after this has happened, and jumps right in to carnage, mayhem, and a society where pretty much everyone is up to no good. Some of the descriptions are really gruesome.

I really liked the style of writing, and felt it put me right in the (unnamed) time period and location. It's not an easy read by any means; I had to re-read certain passages a few times when I got a bit confused about what was going on. Definitely worth it though!

Thank you to the author and the publisher, who provided me an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Receiving this ARC did not in any way impact my opinion of this book.

Thank you to Tor and Netgalley for an advanced reader copy. This is a dark quite macabre mermaid / plague doctor romance full of questionable surgeons, bezoars, and savage children with strange rituals. Cassandra Khaw has a perhaps exhaustive vocabulary, I felt that I needed to look up words every two pages or so, which definitely made it harder to be immersed in the world. In addition, while beautiful, I felt the prose was a little too overwrought. It took me until the end of the novella to feel compelled by the characters. Overall an interesting read. 3.5/5 rounded up.

It took me a minute to be in the right headspace to give this collection a proper go. I am glad that I took the time, though. Reminiscent to me of Lavalle, I think that Khaw has a market in whatever niche was carved out by that and Maguire's Wicked. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity with this title.

This was such an interesting read. Honestly I’ve never read anything like this before so I was nervous going in. I ended up enjoying this. I liked the way the story was written, the sentences were beautiful. I liked following our main character and learning a little bit about her. I loved the plague doctor, they were so interesting to learn about. I did find myself skimming at some parts. I had some trouble following along and trying to figure out what was happening. The ending had me tearing up. I felt like we got to know these characters but I wanted to know them a little bit more. Overall, this was a really fun and interesting read.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review!

This book had promise, however I felt the writing was extremely over-flourished. This felt like a 20 page story expanded into a novel. I stayed with it to find out the conclusion and was left with something to be desired. I appreciate the poetic nature of the writing but felt it was better fit to that - shorter prose or poetry. That said, I did enjoy the main characters and the nature of their relationship. I wish there was more build on that so that the ending had more impact.

1.5 stars. I wanted to love this, but the writing was not for me.

I liked the description and saw others mention that this is a retelling of a certain fairytale and I was immediately interested. There were several things I really liked about this book;
- the synopsis.
- the body gore.
- the horror, fantasy, dystopian elements.
- bleak atmosphere.
- the relationship between the two main characters (although I was it was explored more, had more of a back story.
- cover art is amazing.
- novella sized.

The main and major reason I didn't like it is the writing. I have seen a lot of great reviews BUT I personally struggled to comprehend what I was reading for most of the book. The vocabulary seemed overcomplicated and MOST of the time unnecessarily so. It came off pretentious. Having to google the meaning of words every couple of sentences throughout the entire book was frustrating and felt like homework.

The plot seemed very vague, but maybe a lot went over my head because of the vocabulary. I'm still not completely sure what actually happened in this story.

I bought this authors other novella "Nothing But Blackened Teeth" to have another go at their writing, maybe I'll end up enjoying that one. (review to come soon on that.)

Many thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group, Tor Nightfire for sharing the digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my authentic review.