2.5 stars

I’m not sure how to summarize this novella. I’m not sure I really understood most of it, but there is a touching (glimpse of a) love story at the end. There’s a lot of gruesome torture & human medical experimentation first, though. Some interesting ideas, but a very confusing execution.

[What I liked:]

•The very ending was nice. I mean it was still gory, but it did feel like the mermaid MC truly loved their plague doctor. (Although I had no idea of the nature of their relationship until the plague doctor was dying…)

•There are hints of an interesting world, but next to no world building. I would’ve been interested to learn more about the setting, the character motivations, & who the MCs actually were.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•Is this fantasy? I guess it is, although it also sort of feels more like dystopian sci-fi. But since the experiments are explained more with magic/religion than actual science, I guess it’s more on the fantasy end of speculative fiction? Anyway, besides there being a mermaid & some vague world building, it didn’t feel very fantastical to me.

•Some of the writing is pretty, but it leans into purple territory. I had to keep stopping to look up big words, sometimes multiple ones per sentence, and so the narration felt a bit clunky.

•So. Much. Gore. I mean it was to be expected based on the blurb, but almost nothing happens in this brief story. It felt like an excuse to write grotesque descriptions of vivisection & consumption of human flesh, all over-described with fancy words.

•I’m still not 100% sure what happened, & still very confused about why. For most of the book I was lost. It wasn’t til the very end that I get any sense of the point of the story. I wish it had been clearer much earlier on.

CW: murder, child death, cannibalism, human medical experimentation, torture, body horror

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]

This was amazing! It was beautiful and beyond creepy. The narration was gorgeous. More please!
I loved that our plague doctor was called they/them. I loved the reference to new lives and the gore.

A stunningly grotesque continuation of a classic fairytale. With smartly complicated prose that characterized our main character it truly was a story that felt out of a nightmare. With the utmost compliments I wanted to puke several times. A thrilling experience.

A mute mermaid and a plague doctor flee though an icy forest, escaping their homeland after the mermaid's daughters murdered and ate her husband, the prince, and burned the kingdom to the ground. Deep in the woods, they stumble upon several strange children playing a murderous game, and if you think this sounds creepy, just wait to see what happens when the children take the travelers back to their village.

The Salt Grows Heavy is a grotesque feminist fairy tale, a dark love story, and a master class on body horror all at once. Cassandra Khaw's writing is vivid and deliberate, a style that lulls and bewitches you with its lyrical flow even as it's relaying scenes of the most disturbing, visceral terror. I previously read Khaw's novella Nothing But Blackened Teeth and found it to be overwritten, but their writing style works so perfectly for the type of fantastical horror they're conveying here. The narrator of the audiobook weaves her way through Khaw's sentences with full-throated finesse.

For a relatively short novella, The Salt Grows Heavy is richly-imagined and thought-provoking, a story that is sinister and savage but also, somehow, quite sweet and lovely. For all the scenes of body horror and cannibalism and dark machinations, it's the love story at the heart of this novella that I think I will remember most. Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the advance listening opportunity.

A thesaurus word vomit and body horror do not a book make.

When I say that I made it an hour and some minutes in (roughly 50% of the book) without knowing what the hell was happening, who anyone was, or what this world looked like I wish I was exaggerating. I lost count of how many times I audibly asked “WHAT IS HAPPENING” because I quite literally don’t know what is happening on page. No, seriously. I don’t know what happened in this book other than a mermaid eating people and a Plague Doctor wanting to save kids who don’t want to be saved.

Which for a novella is honestly shocking and telling. Part of this stems from lack of clear motives or thought behind anything these characters are doing while the other part comes from the extreme lack of anything about the characters themselves.

Some of the questions I have for this book (“some” being the keyword because I’m sure there’s more).

How does the magic work? Who is this cult? Where did the plague doctor come from? Why are they with the mermaid? How come the mermaid is okay with leaving her children? Where are they? Is this a made up world or is supposed to be in our world? Who is the authority figure? If the mermaid married a prince is she a princess? What is she the princess of?

I understand the authors intention of spreading out the “backstory” (that’s being generous) of the unnamed main character much later in the book but it was detrimental to the story. Why? Because, it leaves the readers without any understanding, without a name to call her, without an idea of what direction we’re going. And because this is such a short book that’s all information that the readers should have much earlier or at least had breadcrumbs to follow.

This is supposed to be a little mermaid retelling, that’s one of the reasons I requested an ARC, but when I got approved and started listening I had completely forgotten that’s what this was. And continued to read the rest of the novella without realizing once what this was supposed to be. “Retelling” translates to “eh it has a prince and a mermaid, and she lost her voice but that’s not the focus on the book and in fact takes a backseat to whatever is going on with the Plague Doctor and a cult.”


The prose was also very difficult to follow or lose yourself in. This is a book that says so so so little with so so so many words. We are given a display of pretentious descriptions and dialogue, which always leaves me feeling rude to say, but in this case it needs to be said. I would like to consider myself a pretty well read person and I’m not afraid or ashamed to admit that I will google words if I don’t know them. However when you use 50 SAT words in a row for no other reason than to sound smart or fancy, it’s exhausting. I shouldn’t have to stop reading a 2 hour book every few minutes to go look up words. Especially when it’s not necessary, it’s just a style choice.

I’m not squeamish when it comes to body horror and so that element of the book didn’t bother me. But it sadly fell short on delivering any real horror due to the repetitive nature of events. How many times can she say “marrow”, “bezoar”, vivisection”, “viscera”, and “calcium”? Too many times that’s the answer.

The idea of man eating mermaid monster is great, I’m just going to need more than the same descriptions for how she picked apart bodies and ate the tendons and flesh.

I saw a lot of reviews saying that this is a haunting or vivid or unsettling. I wish I had any of those feelings for this book. It was flat, overdone, and lacking any meaning besides the utterly shoehorned “men fear the voices of things they don’t understand.” Which is a great statement just wish it had any relevance to the rest of the book.

Perhaps this novella would’ve been better off as a longer book so we could explore the present while also getting more flashbacks over time in order to help us not feel so disjointed or confused. But then I would’ve had to sit through a longer version of this book.

This book was absolutely unsettling, in the best way. The way Khaw describes certain aspects of this book is grisly and graphic and down right terrifying.

A horrific take on the little mermaid, if the mermaid was an embittered wife with hungry little demon children.

This is a novella and can be read in an hour or two, and if you enjoy fabled horror stories then I highly recommend this little story with lots of darkness.

Poetic, enchanted, lyrical, thank you NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the advanced listening copy all opinions are my own, this one’s out on Tuesday May 2!

The Salt Grows Heavy is a beautifully written novella with vivid imagery, however, there were times I felt it was all overdone. The superfluous complex word usage lost its poetic touch over time, draining the story, and the theatrics felt forced, ultimately leading to a lack of punch. It’s a unique story and I liked it, but I can’t sing its praises as loudly as many other readers have.

I am immensely grateful to Macmillan Audio, Tor Nightfire, and NetGalley for my copy. All opinions are my own.

My Thoughts:

My Flabber is Gasted!

Did CK really need to go the hard?!

The answer is a resounding YES!

I enjoyed Nothing but Blackened Teeth so much that this next one from Cassandra Khaw was immediately on my radar. Her writing style is rich and thick and sets the scene like no other. It's out there. It's a little weird. It's macabre. It's different. I love it. It draws you in. Dalian does an amazing job with the narration. I hung on to every word. A solid horror novella worth your time.

3 stars

I love horror, I love mermaids, and I love fairy tales, so I could not wait to sink my teeth in...wait. After completing this audiobook, I'm not sure I'll be "sinking my teeth" into anything the same way for a while...

For me, the body horror was too much here. Overwhelm from gross out caused me to lose focus on some of the more compelling parts of the narrative, and folks who have similar sensitivities should beware. That noted, I really enjoyed all other stylistic choices, and while I don't think I'll be going back for a re-listen of *this* one anytime soon, I am immediately queueing other works from Khaw, who sees the world in a unique way and creates an even more fascinating option in writing.

I'll look forward to reading more from this author but will also be more mindful of potential run-ins with body horror in the future!

Holy hell I devoured this. I consumed every inch of this book and it left a hollow pit in my stomach longing for more.

I was skeptical prior to starting. I wasn’t a fan of Nothing But Blackened Teeth. But THIS!! This novella was divine.

The story follows a mermaid shortly after birthing two children and her journey with a plague doctor following escape from a vicious husband.

The depth to this story, I became so attached to the characters and their story, their development and their relationship. This is something I normally struggle with with novellas. Not this one. I loved every second of their story, and I crave more.

First off let me say this book is out there...WAY OUT THERE, and I should have expected that when I saw Cassandra Khaw had written it. I have previously read her book Nothing But Blackened Teeth and it was a freaky journey. I will go ahead and say The Salt Grows Heavy is as freaky or even freakier.

To begin with, let me say this about Khaw, her imagination is over the top. Her writing and word usage are not only atop-notch beautiful, but it is also downright lyrical.

The Salt Grows Heavy is first and foremost a love story between a mermaid maid and a plague doctor, and the love story is beautifully written, it just happens to take place surrounded by canniblism and other dark and gory things. Think Little Mermaid meets Lord of The Flies. I would describe it as a beautiful nightmare.

This book will not be for everyone, it is violent and it is gross and it is intense, but as I have said, it is also beautiful, and it has all been mixed together into a perfect entertaining novella.

*MILD SPOILERS AHEAD!*

This was a weird book. I think that overall I enjoyed it, but it was fucking weird.

So, basically a mermaid falls in love with a plague doctor, and things go incredibly sideways for most of the middle of the book. It had some very Lord of the Flies/Peter Pan lost boys vibes, with this group of mostly pre-teen boys living in the wild with these three “Saints” who have shown them the way to everlasting life. It’s incredibly violent and traumatic, and fairly upsetting.

Despite the large amounts of violence and gore in this book, the ending was actually quite tender and lovely.

Cassandra Khaw is really writing some unique stories, and while they may not be entirely for me, I really appreciate what she’s doing and that she’s having success writing these sometimes rather bizarre stories.

** spoiler alert ** A macabre take on The Little Mermaid. Or a gruesomely unorthodox love story. Or a woman/mermaid ripping what she wants from the teeth of the world and the maw of death...

The Salt Grows Heavy is weird, and pretty gory, but I think I liked it? The more I think about it, the more I like what it's doing. It's definitely a departure from the last novella by Khaw, so even if you didn't vibe with Nothing But Blackened Teeth, this might be worth a try. This feels like something I would have loved as a teenager in my emo goth era, and even now I think it's well-executed and has something to say about the expectations placed on women, the constraints of gender, and maybe about transness and the gory, painful physicality that medical transition can entail.

Admittedly I'm not the best person to comment on this last element as it's not my own lived experience, but I do think that's some of the intended subtext here. And with that, it could also be read as trying to offer a nuanced take on the current climate of outrage surrounding the treatment of trans kids and hyperbolic ideas that they're being surgically "mutilated". (to be clear, I fully support trans kids and this idea is false. Gender affirming care for minors does not actually involve surgery, but part of the horror here alludes to those fears) Again, I'm not totally sure that's the intent, but it seems likely? And if so, it's a complex narrative where kids lose their chance at agency and instead become victims caught in the crossfire between characters horrified at surgeon/saints playing god, and those saints who are really more concerned with their own immortality than with preserving the lives of these kids.

Meanwhile the mermaid eventually goes through her own physical changes- some that she wants and others that are about conforming to societal expectations. Which is interesting. There really is a lot medical imagery, involving surgery, death, and resurrection. Or even the character of the plague doctor- an androgynous figure who resents what the surgeons did to them as a child and wears the getup of a very old-school or traditionalist version of medicine. But also they are who the mermaid falls in love with. Seriously, there are so many layers to this story and the more I consider them the more intrigued I am to hear about the author's intent. I know the author is nonbinary, so it would make sense they might write about these issues.

There's more I could say, but I'll stop here. This can be read on the surface as just a gory horror/romance riffing on the original Little Mermaid mythology, but I think it's doing a lot more than that. The audio narration is also excellent. I received an audio review copy of this from NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

This is a strange, yet lyrical narrative. As a novella, this is a short tale but impressively rich and dense in such a few pages.

I picked up this one after really enjoying Nothing But Blackened Teeth. While I loved both novellas, I will advise readers that they are incredibly different from each other. In terms of maturity of prose and complexity of the narrative, this one has the upper hand. Even if readers didn't love her previous Tor Nightfire novella, they should try this one.

I would recommend this to readers looking for a beautiful dark and luscious mermaid tale.

Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

Thank you Netgalley for the advance audiobook copy of The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw in exchange for an honest review. This was a very different version of the little mermaid, a dark and creepy version. I liked it, and enjoyed the twist.

Beautifully dark fairytale with haunting prose.

Perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher or Catherynne M. Valente, this story will bite you and not let go until the end. Our main character is a mermaid-like creature more shark than siren. With her city being destroyed behind her, she walks into the woods along side a plague doctor. An easy friendship begins to form between them when they come upon a scene, where a group of boys are hunting another boy. From there the story squeezes the reader tight, not letting up the pace, while it explores the dark recesses of immortality, love and life.

Although this audiobook is short, you'll want to give it your full attention, because Khaw's beautiful prose are dense with meaning and action. I also recommend reading the digital/physical book after listening because I wanted to highlight, remember and share so many of her quotes, "There is a reason the hunt is central to so many narratives. For all that humanity professes to delighting in it's own sophistication, it longs for simplicity, for when the world can be deboned into binaries; darkness and light, death and life, hunter and hunted." Narrator, Susan Dalian, does an interesting thing with this book, her tone echo's the emotional arc of the book, starting off calm and then growing tense with well-placed pauses and emphasizing passages.

Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio and Tor NightFire for this advanced listener copy.

This book is best read outside at night, by a warm fire with good company (keep a knife close at hand).

I unfortunately didn't like this as much as I wanted to. This book was trying to do a lot in a very small amount of time and things got jumbled. It may just be me or the fact I wasn't in the mood for this type of book but it just wasn't for me.

A really weird "fairy" tale about a mermaid and a plague doctor. On the run from her burned kingdom, the mermaid and her plague doctor run into some feral children and their "saints". And things just get weirder. This was beautifully written, however, it was an odd little story. And Khaw really loves gory, grotesque details. Not for the squeamish reader.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this audio e-arc.*

This was entrancing. I couldn’t look away.

While beautifully written, this book is dark and brutal. What a unique take on the mermaid ashore story. No, this one is a much more visceral, haunting tale.

A mermaid and a plague doctor are traveling together, coming across a group of ravaging children and find the evil men pulling their strings. This short read is one that can be read in one sitting and will have you hooked until the end.

I was truly intrigued by the premise of this book. But it just wasn't for me, I finished it as an audio but I had a truly had time following the story and getting into the writing. I was confused through it all. It's probably a me issue.