Maybe because I listened to it on audio, but I didn't care for the story. It was grotesque, which I can handle, but it was also meandering. I wish there was more explanation of the backstory to understand why the main character and the Plague Doctor were in the woods, who they were staying with, why, etc. DNF at 60%

From the beginning I adored the heavy fairytale vibe. The ways in which you can so clearly see The Salt Grows Heavy within a storybook. Additionally, The Salt Grows Heavy does not shy away from the dangerous, the sharp edges of teeth. I personally adore when stories lean into the danger and predatory nature of mermaids, so from the beginning I had high hopes. There's no lack of beautiful imagery.

And while I adored the imagery, the ending felt a bit loose and lacked the emotional weight. The beginning is luscious and entrancing - both in beauty and razor edges - but then towards the middle, I felt the steam slowing.

This book had so much potential. A mermaid and a plague doctor ? What's not to like? Unfortunately the execution and plot left much to be desired. I found myself trudging through this at the midway point, and nearly didn't finish it.

I needed more of a backstory with the mermaid and plague doctor. How did they get to their current predicament ? Was this book meant to be a sequel?

The plot did not work for me. There was gratuitous gore to the point where the story is lost. Is this author in an anatomy class ? I don't understand the point of that much bodily description unless it's furthering the plot. Overall I have to give this story 2 stars.

Cassandra Khaw drafts a chilling, and at times surprisingly heart-warming, modern fairy tale in The Salt Grows Heavy. Drawing on the more grotesque aspects of The Brothers Grimm, this novella at times feels like a Guillermo del Toro-fueled fever dream whose characters are as sharply defined as the story is unsettling.

Our unnamed narrator (unnamed because her name is unpronounceable by human tongues) is a mermaid who was brought ashore and wed to a prince. Her life as his bride is hardly one of fairy tale romance, though, having been imprisoned by him and forced to bear children. We are introduced her just as she and her offspring have destroyed his kingdom and reduced everything to ash. She is preparing to leave when she meets a plague doctor, who then joins her on her travels.

The Salt Grows Heavy is a story of reclamation, of recapturing and redefining one’s own personhood in the face of trauma and victimization, and rebuilding a life in the face of tragedy. Of course, doing so is always easier said than done.

While traveling through the woods, our mermaid and plague doctor witness a murder as children hunt one of their own for slaughter and are brought to their village. There, they are confronted with three surgeons who claim to have discovered the key to immortality. But to do so, a child — known as a pig — must be sacrificed and resurrected. I couldn’t help but think of “The Three Little Pigs,” smartly inverted and reconfigured here in various ways by Khaw, with the children cast as wolves and the surgeons a vicious and greedy amalgamation of the two. The surgeons themselves are creepy conjurations, quick and eager to cut and carve and do worse in their unholy pursuit of longevity.

The Salt Grows Heavy deftly explores the violent ways men thoughtlessly, carelessly, and violently shape the world to their own ends, and the way others are forced to reckon and adapt with these changes. Their victims can be plowed under or they can burn it all down in eager rebellion. Khaw’s mermaid, naturally and rightfully, opts for the latter and I absolutely love how even their simplest sentences can be sharp, double-edged blades fraught with meaning. Take for instance their narrator’s reflection that “Fat burns gorgeously, after all, and with such succulent fragrance. My husband’s kingdom taught me this.” Given what we know of what happened to her husband’s kingdom, these two sentences hold so much promise and so much peril, and they land all the harder for it.

Even more deft is Khaw’s exploration of friendship, of love, of found family that grows between our mermaid and androgynous plague doctor over the course of their shared journey. For such a slim novella, Khaw manages to pack in an awful lot of depth between these two characters and their developing relationship. They both have a surprising amount in common and although their past traumas bind them together it never defines their relationship. I greatly enjoyed the support they show each other, slowly nurturing each other through the new dangers they confront while exploring the suffering that has helped to shape them both.

Khaw puts it far better, naturally, in their own launch-day post about The Salt Grows Heavy, which appeared in my in-box as I was writing this review, so I’ll them have the last word.

"All books are metaphors for something percolating through the author, I think. Whether it is a need to memorialize a moment, an obsession with a subject, or a way to process some strange circumstances, every book draws from something vulnerable and precious.

"The Salt Grows Heavy is about a lot of things important to me but mostly, it is about love. Not the tidy romances of Hollywood or wholesome familial affection. It’s about the stuff that exists between: love that comes after loss, love that had been mutilated by trauma and thus cannot be offered in its entirety, love when you’ve never been taught love and only know it at an amused remove, love when you have nothing to offer but the promise you’ll sit there and hold their hand as they die."

"Her vertebrate break with the crisp, dewed noise of an apple's skin when it's first pierced"

Honestly, this novella made me a little bit nauseous at some points... which, is not not what I want in a horror novel..

I think I liked this book more than Khaw's Nothing But Blackened Teeth ... This novella had more likable characters and fun illusions to a familiar story, and for me, it was also a lot easier to understand. & also, a nonbinary character, yay 🎉

This is Cassandra Khaw's take on what could have potentially happened (slightly during) mostly after the events of The Little Mermaid & it's wonderfully dark and grotesque and magical and super super weird.

I only wish it were longer and expanded on the events that happened while she was still in the castle, and how she came to be there and everything. It probably would have made a bit more sense to me in some places.

I haven't read Anderson's The Little Mermaid in a long time, but reading this while having the memory of Disney's version in my head was really interesting and twisty. The mermaid has married the Prince, been locked away, and then exacts her revenge and it's horrific and icky; which is very fun, especially in contrast to the beautiful way in which Khaw writes.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for providing me with an ARC

The Salt Grows Heavy is a dark and twisted retelling of a fairytale we all know: The Little Mermaid.

That is enough said on really what this is about, but I want to further this a bit more-I want you to think less of The Little Mermaid we know and love by Disney, but to really think of the Brother's Grimm when it comes to the fairytale.

The Salt Grows Heavy is really dark and reimagines this fairytale of the mermaid as a fantasy and horror tale. There are cannibal mermaids and we see our main character travel with a plague doctor. It's definitely an interesting concept and image.

For those who do not know, this is a novella and is obviously a fast read. The story was well done and I think because I read this on audiobook, I did not get to encompass the atmosphere of the story well and it could have been the narrator pulling me out of the story since I found myself engaged and not engaged as I was listening to this book.

This novella is really gory so discretion beware and I did find this novella to be fascinating at times. I think for me this was an okay read, but like I said it could have been a different experience if I physically read this book.

What a weird, gruesome, wonderful little novella.

Cassandra Khaw is quickly becoming one of my favourite horror writers.  Their writing style is so distinct and immersive.  I love their use of language and imagery.  

The Salt Grows Heavy involves a mermaid on land after marrying a prince; she destroys his kingdom, letting her daughters eat the people there, and she goes on the run with a plague doctor.  They discover a weird little down full of immortal children.

This novella is bizarre, but in a very readable way.  It has the resonance of a fairy tale but also feels immediate and detailed.  There’s visceral body horror and a bit of a sweet romance.

I haven’t ready anything quite like this, and I loved everything about it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Nightfire for my review copy of this book

I absolutely adore stories that read as both horrific and beautiful at the same time. Absolutely elegant prose filled with gore and terror. Colorful and evocative imagery juxtaposed against apathetic and dismissive dialogue. Compassionate concern wrapped in manipulation and poison. This novella is Hans Christensen Anderson, Poe, Dickinson, and Shelley tossed into a cauldron and simmered together into a black magic soup. And it is delicious.

I don’t normally give warnings. I don’t like them, because I feel it ruins the story. Especially if you’re reading dark fantasy or horror. In my opinion, you should pretty much be buckled in and ready for whatever when you open up a book in these genres. In this case, I am going to warn you this book isn’t for people who want to avoid gore or body horror. Just trust me on this.

Clocking in at around 115 pages (depending on your format), Cassandra Khaw makes efficient and effective use of every single word, using brilliant sentence and scene construction to bring this story together in the most economic, efficient, and elegant way possible. It’s not a complex story at its core: It’s two characters simply traveling together to see what’s over the next mountain. That’s generally what most stories are about, really: What’s over there? It’s a classic journey. In a full-length novel, the characters would be waylaid several times by side quests and subplots. In this novella, our two protagonists reach their first side quest and that’s where the vast majority of the story takes place.

I love that. I love that these two characters abandon their journey for what they think will just be a little while: First out of curiosity, then out of obligation, then out of vengeance, and then…Well, that would be spoiler territory.

It’s lovely and ghastly and perfect, in my opinion. Macabre, sinister, and sad. I highly recommend it.

I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All ideas, views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: Dark Fantasy/Horror/Mythological Fiction/Novella/Body Horror

3⭐️

<b> It is always interesting to see how often women are described as ravenous when it is the men who, without exception, take without thought of compensation.</b>

Meh. I really enjoyed <i>Nothing But Blackened Teeth</i>, and I had high expectations going into this book. The writing is great and lyrical, but I wasn’t invested in the story much at all. The plot follows a mermaid after her prince has cut out her tongue and her daughters have burned his kingdom to the ground. While on the run, a plague doctor accompanies her and they find themselves in curious circumstances. Overall, this was really just mediocre. It’s a horror retelling of the Little Mermaid with a plague doctor and some creepy saints/children thrown in.

<b> We lunge together, two actors in a story so old that its rhythms are recorded in marrow, retold with every new birth, repeated with every fresh death.</b>

I truly wanted to love this novella, because I’m a huge fan of mermaids in general and the premise sounded so damn exhilarating and dark. However, same as the previous book I read from this author, Nothing But Blackened Teeth, the purple prose made the reading experience truly tedious. Yes, I can understand trying to make the text sound old-timey when the protagonists are a killer mermaid and Plague Doctor, but one can do that without continually using words that are obscure to mean simple concepts. If there were a few thrown in the text it wouldn’t be so terrible, but the fact that the short novella was littered with them, it truly took away from the reading experience. I will say that I loved the ending and it truly aches me that the novella was kind of dull until then. This novella could’ve been so much more, especially if it hadn’t begun in medias res, but we would’ve gotten a bit more history or flashbacks of what went on prior to the mermaid running away with the Plague Doctor. The ending was truly beautiful and it’s sad that this story couldn’t have been so much more. The author is talented and has excellent ideas, but executing them seems to be an issue. I don’t know if I’ll read another work from this author since this is the second one I’ve read and wasn’t truly a fan. Maybe I’m not the right audience, but many people who love horror did enjoy this novella, so I don’t want to discourage you from checking it out.

*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Unfortunately, I did not like this at all.
I can appreciate Khaw's prose and their ability to write a beautifully structured sentence, but this felt extremely wordy for 112 pages. I was having a hard time comprehending what was happening because of how it was written, and that really took me out of the story. I'm not sure I can confidently say what exactly happened, although it seemed not to be much. Lots of gore and lots of big words that amounted to not a great time for me.

This was a bit of a fever dream of a book and for most of the time, I wasn't exactly sure what was going on. With that being said, I thought that the relationship between the Plague Doctor and the protagonist was very well captured and was quite sweet, given the visceral and gruesome events surrounding them. There was a lot of gore in this book, but this was interspersed with really lyrical writing, leaving me a bit nonplussed and not entirely sure how I feel!
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I will be honest, I requested an ARC of this before I realized who it was written by. Nothing But Blackened Teeth was...something alright as it ended up being one of the lowest-rated books I've read. I still read this though to give her a second shot, and while this wasn't very successful in my eyes it wasn't really anything to remark about.

It is hard to create an engaging story when it is on the shorter side because that means less space to flesh out your story and actually catch and hold the reader's attention. I don't think this book managed to do that because, right out of the gate, there was barely any context for the story having dived right into what felt like the middle of it. I found that the story wasn't very coherent as it comprised of random snippets of narrative with some gore thrown in to spice things up.

Still, though, it wasn't a horrible story once my brain managed to catch up to what was happening. The downside is that this also isn't a memorable one, as I will promptly forget all about this shortly after reading it. If you liked her previous book you could still like this one as well, but I would caution anyone going into this who doesn't like gorey imagery and descriptions since this has quite a few.

Thank you, NetGalley and Tor, for giving me the opportunity to review this in advance.

The Salt Grows Heavy is a horror and a love story with melodic prose and storytelling. I wasn’t sure what to make of its extravagantly gory words but in the end, I really loved it. It’s a love story between a mermaid and a plague doctor who leave the mermaid’s kingdom after her daughters burned her husband’s kingdom down and it gets wilder from there.

Read this if you love gore, horror, fantastically obscure words, and illustrious storytelling.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for this eARC. The Salt Grows Heavy is out now.

Cassandra Khaw writes the most stunning prose and adds in the gory details I crave in my horror.

I loved the mix of fantasy and horror in this one. The premise was unique and SO dark. Add a little romance and this story may have a little bit for everyone.

I finished this dark fairytale novella in one day and wished that there was more. I seriously enjoyed this read so much. It has a very bleak yet beautiful atmosphere that gripped me from the first page. For such a short read, there was a surprising amount of development and depth within this world. I would love to see the author write more about these characters or at least in this setting. Just a fantastic and disturbing read overall.

I honestly felt like I was taking a little bit of a gamble with this read, too, because I didn't enjoy Nothing But Blackened Teeth when I read it last year. The prose felt forced and entirely too dense for my tastes, as if the author chose the words to obscure the story rather than enhance it. While The Salt Grows Heavy does have a few instances of this, overall it reads much better than Nothing But Blackened Teeth did. If you're hesitant to pick this up for the same reason I was, I highly recommend giving it a shot anyway.

I finished this novella last night and I can’t stop thinking about it. Or telling people about it. I can’t even begin to describe all the intricate aspects of the story that make it so epic:
Looking for a dark, gory fairy tale? Check. Are you a fan of creepy kids who live in even creepier villages? You got it. Are murderous mermaids and unsettling plague doctors your thing? Done and done. Then take all the gore and terror and wrap it up in incredible prose and a bit of a love story, and here you are.

As with all of Khaw’s stories, I’m going to be thinking about this one for a while. It’s so unique and disturbing, this is one I want to talk about with all my fellow horror readers!

After reading the lush writing of Cassandra Khaw in their novella, Nothing But Blackened Teeth, which I read with my Book Discussion Group last Halloween, I was curious to check out more of their work. I had the opportunity to read an early copy of the Salt Grows Heavy, provided by Netgalley and the publisher in order to provide an honest review. The book had the beautiful evocative language and graphic horror elements that I expected from Khaw’s previous work, but the story itself was a very unique feminist take on the Little Mermaid story.

In this story a mermaid is captured and forced to marry a prince, who cuts out her tongue so she cannot speak. Her daughters though bring vengeance unto the kingdom with their insatiable appetites and the story begins with the Mermaid and an immortal Plague Doctor fleeing the ruins and encountering figures from the Doctor’s past. The story merges horror with a fairytale love story; it is a bit like the beautiful corpse flowers that attract flies instead of butterflies, so smell like rotting meat, managing to be both gorgeous and repulsive in equal measures. This novella would make a perfect read to curl up with during a summer thunderstorm.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for the eARC.

I heard mermaids and plague doctors and thought I'd get a little horror novella to tide me over as I looked for something to sink my teeth into. I was not at all prepared for the way this story grabbed me and sunk its teeth in instead.

It's beautiful, brtual, haunting, violent, and gory. This story focuses more on its prose than its characters at times, and while this usually bothers me, in this case it worked. I felt like a spectator to this world and it worked well. This is what a grimdark fairytale looks like - it's not an existing story just given a shadowcast, but it's been built from bones and vicera and rot from the ground up and turned into something grotesque and yet alluring to look at.

I feel like 'gross' is a true compliment here. Two monsters on this journey felt... It felt like seeing two pillars in the midst of a fire, resisting the fall. We start with them unsure of what's the come and quickly become swept up in this horror they both exist in, and yet that they find comfort in. That they find solidarity. This book stands on the foundations of 'what makes a monster, are we the monsters?' and I will always eat that up every time.

For such a short read I encourage people to go into this not knowing much. Spoiling it truly ruins the experience.

This novella does not give you time to get your bearings. You are dropped in the aftermath of destruction and are quickly pulled into the next setting of chaos and horror, learning about your main characters along the way. The horror and violence are crucial to the story, but is written in the most powerful and purposeful way. I devoured this one (pun intended for those who’ve read). If you like strong female characters, nightmarish myths, f**ked-up elitists with a god-complex, and dark romance, this one might be for you!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! The story, characters, and the freaking writing! (I also loved that the plague doctor's gender was not explicit nor binary!) Beautifully done. It captured me and I have not stopped thinking about it since I finished. It feels like a definite re-read for me, something I don’t say often.