Rating - ⭐⭐⭐
"You may think you know how the fairytale 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 cruellest parts of their true nature if they hope to survive."
The Salt Grows Heavy is a standalone horror novella by Cassandra Khaw.
First and foremost, I would like to thank NetGalley and Tor for giving me the opportunity to review this in advance. Please note that this in no way affects my opinions. Also note that what I read was an ARC, and things may be subject to change for the official release.
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.