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.

A hauntingly beautiful, gory mermaid story that I didn't know I need to read. There's something about this tale that is heartbreakingly beautiful and otherworldly. It's hard to put into words or truly describe my feelings while reading. This was for sure, however, a top read. It made made me think and the prose was haunting and unsettling in the best way.

I've been looking forward to this intensely - Khaw doing a horror take on mermaids? Yes please. Her writing is tactile and visceral at the same time, and when you apply that to deep sea mermaids who like meat you get some glorious gore that's loving and intimate and a novella that's over all too soon. Give me more mermaids that are from the depths and have no interest in being human (but hey turns out they're a pretty dank meat source) and are out of your nightmares. Also watching our mermaid learn how to trust, even if she expresses that trust by thoroughly dissecting children and.nightmare surgeons. Also, fun to see more terror doctors engaging in extremely toddlers having temper tantrum esque surgeries. Look, it's a fantastic beach read, you'll probably get through it in an afternoon, go and read and enjoy.

I really liked this a LOT! It was probably like a 4.25 or 4.5 for me. The only reason it wasn't 5 stars is my own fault, as I feel like I didn't really know enough about the lore behind the story to fully understand everything. I also feel like the language at times was maybe a little overly flowery, but I didn't really mind this too much (but some people might). I wanted to know so bad what happened and flew through this. It's impressive that in such a short book I felt so attached to the main characters -- I was rooting for them so hard. Thank you so much for the advance copy!!!

THE SALT GROWS HEAVY is a mermaid tale. If the horror genre needs anything, it's more mermaid stories!

In this one, our mermaid has been forced to leave her hometown ... for reasons. On her travels she meets a man in a plague doctor mask and they continue travelling together. Until they reach a town of children and saints. Will both the mermaid and the plague doctor survive their visit? You'll have to read this to find out.

I'm finding it hard to come up with the right words here. I like Cassandra Khaw's writing, but at times it is just too dense and descriptive. For me, the language often slowed the story down and messed with the pacing.

THE SALT GROWS HEAVY reflects back to us how society often treats women, and it's not a pretty sight, even if the woman is a beautiful mermaid. When a woman wakes up today with certain rights, but tomorrow wakes up and those rights are gone, it's hard to deny that things really have not changed. Many have been pretending the whole time. Rapists run for president now, you know?

Overall, I did enjoy the story, but not as much as I had hoped. Every book is not for every reader, but I will continue to read Khaw's work, because her books are wild and thought-provoking. HAMMERS ON BONE will be up next on my Khaw TBR!

*Thank you to Tor, NetGalley, and the author for the paperback ARC in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it!*

These characters had a wild ass story to share, too bad Khaw's obsession with ten-dollar words gets in the way of it.

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