Unfortunately this is my first DFN in a long while. I tried hard, but honestly I just couldn’t get into it. I think this is 80% a me problem, the writing was so pretentious and trying too hard that I could not connect. I read about 30% and had almost no clue what was going on. Maybe I’m just not cut out for this author, as I can see that I’m in the minority when it comes to her books.
I dont want to have to work so hard to enjoy a story.

The Salt Grows Heavy is such an intriguing novella. We are thrown right into the story and introduced to
our two characters, a mysterious plague doctor and a mermaid travelling to a creepy isolated village run by a youthful cult and self-proclaimed saints. The story is violent with plenty of gore, carnage and body horror, but it is also a haunting, lyrical tale of love and justice. A grotesque fairy tale with a beautiful heart. Thank you Netgalley and Tor Publishing Group for giving me an advance readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was EXACTLY what I was looking for in a novella. And to top it all off, I guess I'm now a fan of horror romance and Cassandra Khaw.

This is a must-read for any horror fan. I'm not really a gore fan, but I'll make an exception for this because it was well-written. The pacing was also well done that even with lulls in the prose, I was still hooked on the story enough to keep reading in (almost) one sitting.

The mermaid and the plague doctor were written in a way that made you really want to root for them, even though one is a monster that loves to eat human body parts. Usually, my issue with novellas is that either characterization or worldbuilding are sacrificed for the plot or action. But not so with The Salt Grows Heavy. Everything is evenly balanced so that you understand the immediate setting (with some of the world at large), the main characters and their quirks and ambitions, and the supporting characters and the roles they play regarding the story and their relationships with the MCs and with each other.

The writing is beautiful and I couldn't help but to highlight some passages in my e-arc copy. And I'm someone who hasn't annotated anything since undergrad. It's that good.

Although some of the words used are... excessive? to the point where reading this novella might not be accessible if you have trouble reading in English. The author uses some really obscure words that I had to keep looking up in my Kindle's built-in dictionary. And since I was using it in airplane mode, half the definitions weren't included in the standard dictionary. Honestly, this is my only issue with the novella.

Thank you to Tor Publishing Group and NetGalley for this arc.

This was interesting. First of all, Tor has some of the best cover art. This book is romantic, which I was not expecting. Admittedly, I did not pay much attention to the synopsis. It has a lot of body horror, which is fine with me. I read Khaw's last novella & I enjoyed them both, but possibly the first more. I can appreciate lyrical prose, but this book has so many words I had never encountered & will likely never encounter again. Some words were obscure enough that my kindle dictionary didn't have a definition. It was distracting & at times I would do just my best with context clues so I could move along with the story. Still, I intend to read Khaw's next release. 3.5 stars rounded to 4

Unsettlingly affecting.
What a story. And telling.
As intriguing as anticipated.

Everything you have probably heard about this book... is probably mostly accurate.

Dark-- and then some.
Uniquely-twisted. Over-the-top descriptions. More-unknown/new-to-you-words-than-any-other-book-you'll-ever-read. Leaves you wanting to know more of the captivating main characters. Lyrical and artistic.
Odd. Emotive. and Bludgeoningly-delivered with velvet gloves.

Pretty amazing number of layers involved in a short read.. which somehow amounts to be too much... not enough.. slow rolls.. and whiplash-quick action... in a love story that haunts you.

Thanks to Tor Nightfire and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity at a sneak peek into this novella!

I'm not going to lie, the writing was difficult for me. I'm a fast reader usually, but the prose made me really slow down and pay closer attention as I read. I feel like I could still find more if I did a reread.
A very dark story? Myth? Fairytale? I'm going with all of the those.

A mermaid come ashore (and not your Disney mermaid here, this is the real thing), leaving behind her children who have killed the prince and taken down the rest of the kingdom, in a journey with a plague doctor. They venture through the wood to a group of children under the sway of three cannibal saints. Lots of graphic body horror to follow, until a fiery ending that made me want to shake my fist into the air for the "winner". (I'm giving away no spoilers!)

This is a very heavy and visceral story, you can easily visual the horror that is found in these dark, snowy woods. All I could think was that the story was flashing through my brain like a series of paintings. Dark, dark, dark, like watching blood spill across a frozen snowy landscape. I went from a beginning that made me question if I'd make it through the whole thing (the prose), to flying page by page to "see" more of the conflict. And now? I want MORE. I want more background story for that mermaid and plague doctor.

This book sacrificed a lot of important plot details for purple prose. The language was incredibly dense, which sometimes gave greater weight to the often incredibly gory imagery, but other times made it confusing to follow along with what was happening. Aside from the vocabulary, this reads like a fairy tale, sort of distanced from the emotions and the background of the characters. Although I was really interested in the background of the 'mermaid' as well as what exactly happened directly before the story begins, I think this approach to the story worked well.
Because of the purple prose, I was ready to give this book a 3 star rating. But then the epilogue, which was absolutely perfect, made me cry. A 3 star book has never made me cry. So I moved my rating up to 4 stars. I would recommend reading this book just for that epilogue.

This is a dark twisted fairytale featuring a mermaid and a plague doctor. But it's so beautiful and well written that the horrors (when they happen) are striking and chilling.

As you're reading, the tight poetic prose lures you into this tale and into the world of these characters. The author knows how to jar the reader at unexpected times, barely with warning, and that's a very good thing.

While the narrative lulls you in its arms, the horrific events that happen reminds you that this is a horror story and the acts committed by certain characters are a stark contrast to the beautiful world the author creates.

This makes it an exceptionally compelling page turner. Despite the bloodshed, this book is about trust in another person (or even creature) and what the sacrifice might be for that trust.

It's a gorgeous, moving, and bloody novella and I highly recommend it.

A mermaid and a plague doctor stumble upon a child being murdered by children. Only the children explain that the child will be brought back to life and bring the mermaid and doctor back to their village to show them exactly how.

I want to tell you what the book was trying to say but I really don’t know. I don’t think this book will be appealing to the masses. By sentence two I was already having to use the dictionary function on my Kindle and would do so for every page of this book thereafter. The book is short but the prose is dense and unfortunately I was only able to grasp it at surface level and not much else.

For me, it was a book that didn’t invoke any emotion during the course of reading it other than feeling squeamish. The gore in this book is also graphic. It deals with body mutilation, cannibalism and cults. That much I did grasp.

Thank you to Tor Books for providing an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was an experience. That is the best way to describe it. Objectively, this is a masterpiece of exquisite writing, however I couldn’t form the type of attachment that I require to truly enjoy a book. I don’t regret reading it and will recommend it to certain readers. Ones who focus almost completely on the beauty of the written word and the visceral emotions it can make you feel. For them this would be 5/5. For me, it was 3/5. So I’m settling on 4/5!

Dense, thick prose. Heavy, dark imagery. Ultimately, about the endurance of love. It’s stark and bleak and gross and beautiful.
Releases May 2nd!
Also, very excited for their collab book with @rkadrey The Dead Take The A Train!

A mermaid and a plague doctor. What a juxtapositioning of characters. The cover was the first thing that drew me into this book. And it did not disappoint as I began reading. The Salt Grows Heavy is a dark, macabre tale filled with grotesque imagery paired with beautiful, eloquent prose to match the relationship between our mermaid and plague doctor. Khaw is not rehashing the Disney mermaid story, but they are breathing new life into the Hans Christian Andersen version. They take a dark fairytale and give it another shade of darkness. Then sprinkles in moments of tenderness and illuminates these dark spaces with luxurious descriptions of the characters.

As we follow our characters on their adventure, we begin to question who the “monsters” really are here in this strange village. After bearing witness to some of the atrocities of the story, I found myself rooting for the mermaid as she devours obstacles. While this story is fantastic, there are some background and characters I would like to know more about. This story had a plot hole that I would like to see some additional exploration in as well. I hope this means we may find ourselves reading more about the adventures of our mermaid and her plague doctor again soon.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher, TorNightfire, for this ARC.

This novella is stomach-churningly stunning. While not entirely sure of everything I consumed in this book, it was both horrifying and mesmerizing. This is my first experience with this author's work and now I'm curious to read more by them! Definitely one I'd only recommend to those with a strong stomach, because this definitely leans into the body horror.

Rating: 2.5

I really liked Nothing But Blackened Teeth because I thought it was a quick, entertaining read that didn't take itself too seriously. I feel like this book is the opposite of that. It feels pretentious and hard to follow at times. I was interested un the .concept and liked the relationship between the priest and the mermaid, but that's pretty much the only positive things I felt about it.

Absolutely gorgeous prose of explicit gore and disturbing brutality. I often questioned if this book needed to be written, as I question anything that fictionally depicts the murder and torture of children (just, why?). The glorification of violence overshadowed what could have been a fairly interesting tale of a plague doctor and mermaid coming across an eerie village where three immortal saints lorded over children from unknown origin.

CW: as described above

Thank you (?) to Netgalley and the publisher, TorNightfire, for this ARC.

If you are looking for a dark, prose-forward, and violent fairy-tale, look no further than The Salt Grows Heavy.

We've all heard the classic story before: A mermaid gives up her voice to be with the human man she loves. But this story is much darker than the Disney movie you might be thinking about. This mermaid loses her voice when the humans cut her tongue out from her body. When she and her human lover have daughters, these daughters aren't messing around. They kill all of the humans, and our mermaid protagonist is now on the run. She meets up with an androgynous plague doctor with a dark past, and they travel together until they reach a small village where the children play murderous games, and the government is controlled by three prophet-surgeons. The Mermaid and Plague Doctor have one primary goal: survive.

There are so many wonderful elements to this novella that I don't even know where to begin.

Khaw's prose is beautiful and transportive. Their prose is evocative of the old fairy tale style, but with an elevated and modern twist. Khaw took the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, and more and somehow further twisted their narratives into the gothic and horrifying. It is obvious that Khaw carefully selected each and every word to achieve just the right connotation; just the right emotional response; just the right poetic beat. I found myself often needing to go back and re-read passages because I was so swept up in Khaw's words that I wasn't actually following the story. (I was also glad that I read this book on a Kindle because there were a lot of words that I had to look up in the dictionary!)

Take just the opening passages of the book. I read those first few pages at least three times as I was swept away by Khaw's lyrical description of the Mermaid's daughters murdering their father while their house burned down. It even took me a moment to realize that that was happening because the prose was so poetic, so metaphorical.

Khaw populates her world with mysterious characters that come to (eerie and sinister) life. Both the Mermaid the Plague Doctor are well-drawn and complex characters. The Mermaid is our POV character throughout the novella, and so we see the world through her lens. She is a character who thought she found love and happiness, but was quickly escorted into a terrible situation that only got worse. As readers, it is easy to empathize with her plight, and we cheer her on through her trials and triumphs. However, to me, and maybe it was because they weren't the POV character, the more interesting of our two main characters was the Plague Doctor. Khaw slowly peels away their mask (both literally and figuratively) as we get to know their dark past and foreboding future. The Plague Doctor brings a jovial sadness to the novella that felt so very real and so very human.

This novella is not for the easily grossed out or faint of heart. Khaw never goes too far, and the horror elements never feel exploitative, but their descriptions of the dark, bloody, and gross things that the Mermaid and Plague Doctor encounter and experience made my skin tingle. I am one of those people who gets a small pain in my knee if someone is talking about how they hurt their knee, and so I was experiencing these little sensations from the images that Khaw conjured up in this little novella. The book isn't scary, but it is dread-inducing as Khaw takes us through this mysteriously horrifying village located within this greater horrifying world.

Through all of the body horror, the sinister surgeons, and the violent villagers, this is a story of love between two broken people crossing a shattered landscape together. Despite its short length, the relationship between the Mermaid and the Plague Doctor grows organically. It's not a fantasy-romance by any means, but it two people finding each both despite and because of the macabre.

I always feel that my role as a reviewer is to help set reader expectations for the books that I review. So, I will say this - if you are primarily a plot reader than this book may not be for you. Readers who do not care about the actual prose or writing of the book (or who value other elements of fiction writing more) may find this novella over-written (some may even call the prose purple) and bloated in its writing. While the Khaw definitely revels in some of the horror elements, particularly in the latter half of the novella, much of the novella is also slow and contemplative. If you aren't swept up in Khaw's world and writing in the first few pages, then nothing the novella does later really changes that.

For me, the entire thing really worked and I enjoyed spending an evening in Khaw's messed up world. This was my first book by Cassandra Khaw, and I will now make sure to go seek out more.

Concluding Thoughts: This novella won't be for everyone as The Salt Grows Heavy is unlike anything I've ever read. It is a gorgeously grotesque fairy-tale lead by two memorable characters finding love in a disturbing world. Readers who love lyrical prose, body horror, and very slanted fairy tale retellings should definitely check this one out.

A mermaid in on the run after her daughters have eaten their kingdom and burned it to the ground. She’s joined by a mysterious plague ground with their own secrets. While in the forest, they come across a village of children who love blood and are controlled by three ‘saints”. The story follows the mermaid and plague doctor adventure through the cruel village.

I would’ve liked more on the mermaids backstory but I did enjoy the story overall. I did have a lot of questions while reading it and I found it be a little purple prose for my liking. I wasn’t a fan of Khaw’s last novella so I’m pleasantly surprised and glad I gave this author another chance.

Thanks to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book!

This was so beautifully cyclical and mesmerizing. I couldn’t put it down and highlighted nearly have the book. Cassandra Khaw always gifts us a body’s weight worth of gorgeous quotes.

BRAVO! MAGNIFICENT!

Okay, for one, I'm so thankful to Cassandra Khaw and Tor NightFire for sending me an Advanced Reader Copy of this gorgeously jaw-dropping horror novella before it's set to publish on May 2, 2023.

Second, I was lucky enough to participate in a buddy read of sorts (even though I suck at those) with the always lovely @Readergirlie. A book this short is quickly sufficient to binge in an hour or two.

The Salt Grows Heavy is a horror novella that tells the tale of an unlikely pair: A ravenous mermaid and a plague doctor. The two travel across the land, seeking vengeance for an undisclosed reason, feasting on the bodies and souls of the unfortunate passerby of the moment. When the duo comes across an odd campsite that tasks their children with hunting each other for sport and resurrection purposes, the plague doctor decides to use his gift for good and save as many poor children as possible.

This fortress includes the task force of several zombie-like surgeons who maim and torture their patients, stitching together various demises and body parts, all to defeat mortality. Backed by the murderous rage of the land-bound mermaid and the plague doctor's unresolved trauma and healing abilities, they combine their forces with standing up against these cult-like practices, and in turn, we see a love story like no other.

This was probably a 4.5 star read for me. Taking a half star away for some unanswered plot holes (like…where did her daughters go? They were there at the very beginning then never mentioned again?), but overall, this was an astonishing story. I was hooked at “Mermaid,” “Plague Doctor,” and “small village cult,” which were all descriptions of this book that I saw. The writing is lush and creepy and atmospheric, the story is grisly and haunting. It was so strange, and it will definitely haunt me, but it was so so good too.