The Salt Grows Heavy
“Khaw’s poetic prose and stylish approach to gore make it a blood-soaked, unforgettable gem.” —The New York Times
From Cassandra Khaw, USA Today bestselling author of Nothing But Blackened Teeth, comes The Salt Grows Heavy, a razor-sharp and bewitching fairy tale of discovering the darkness in the world, and the darkness within oneself.
A Best Horror Book of 2023 (The New York Times, Library Journal) • A Best Book of 2023 (NPR) • A Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award Finalist! • An Indie Next Pick
You may think you know how the fairy tale goes: a mermaid comes to shore and weds the prince. But what the fables forget is that mermaids have teeth. And now, her daughters have devoured the kingdom and burned it to ashes.
On the run, the mermaid is joined by a mysterious plague doctor with a darkness of their own. Deep in the eerie, snow-crusted forest, the pair stumble upon a village of ageless children who thirst for blood, and the three “saints” who control them.
The mermaid and her doctor must embrace the cruelest parts of their true nature if they hope to survive.
Includes the bonus short story, "And In Our Daughters, We Find a Voice", set in the same universe.
Also by Cassandra Khaw:
Find Me Where It Ends
The Library at Hellebore
Nothing But Blackened Teeth
A Song for Quiet
Hammers on Bone
The Dead Take the A Train (co-written with Richard Kadrey)
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Community Reviews
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✨ Summarized by Bookclubs AI
Readers say *The Salt Grows Heavy* features beautiful, vivid language and a dark, imaginative retelling of The Little Mermaid with a twisted, violent ...
This was a dark, imaginative retelling of The Little Mermaid with a sickening twist and a lot of violence. If it excelled in anything, it was in its flowery language and vivid descriptions. Overall, I think there was a lot going on and I don't think I got the emotional impact out of this story I was hoping to get. Still an interesting read.
Nothing Burger:
DNF. Audiobook.
Overuse of adjectives, often little more than word salad, combined with narrator's sonorous voice and cadence, encouraged mind wandering. For me, this novella was simply a plotless smorgasbord of body mutilation and flesh eating smothered in flowery language to disguise the poor world building and lack of character development. Sad, because there aren't enough fantasy stories with mermaids.
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