Thank you to the publishers for sending me a copy in exchange for a review.

This book was so dark and creepy - I loved it!
It was a dark, depressing and gory version of the little mermaid in my opinion, with a smattering of eery folk horror in the cult-like behaviours of the children our mermaid and plague doctor meet. I would love more books with these two. Their relationship was wonderful to read, that ending killed me.

This is one I will think about for a long time to come.

I thoroughly enjoyed THE SALT GROWS HEAVY.

At first the book makes the reader feel slightly unmoored, as you more or less find yourself dropped into what feels like a story that has already unravelled for the most part, relishing in what's left in its way. But boy, does the story as we come to it rise like a phoenix from the ashes of the fairytale gone bad. What follows is a twisted lovechild of THE LITTLE MERMAID and Frankenstein, with just a side of PETER PAN's lost boys to it.

While it seems many found Khaw's prose to be a bit verbose, I thought the style really lent itself to the story (if a fairytale doesn't invite one to wax poetic, then what does?), and especially the characters (it seems natural to me that our protagonist would delight in the rediscovery of language). The existentialism seeped into some of the core questions that the book invites the reader to ponder upon also spoke to me in particular.

Overall, simply gorgeous.

"The Salt Grows Heavy" by Cassandra Khaw is a horror novella that delves into a dark and eerie tale. After the murder of her husband and the fall of his empire, a mermaid and her plague doctor companion find themselves escaping into the wilderness.

I'll start this review by saying that I've been trying to branch out this year reading wise. I haven't read much horror, but wanted to try it out and was recommended this one.
This book was very eerie and very descriptive and ultimately, I don't think I was the targeted audience for this story.
That being said, I did enjoy the Khaw's writing style and it pulled me in.
I'd still definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves horror.

A nice and short novella which was surprisingly good, hugely gruesome and possibly way too descriptive but very enjoyable. Cults with cannibal kids and a travelling mermaid and plague doctor makes for a fun read!

The author writes in such a horrific but beautiful way. I much preferred this to Nothing but Blackened Teeth and will definitely be reading more of Khaw's books.

Cassandra Khaw just delivered a savage and deeply creepy novella!

I enjoyed the premise of her previous work "Nothing But Blackened teeth" and was excited to read "The Salt Grows Heavy". What a step up in the intensity, horror and how unsettling the entire story actually is. This is also a clever and well orchestrated combination of fairytale entwined with fantasy horror in a decent dark retelling. Perhaps the monster element is not for everyone and the descriptive writing style, however I find that both of these compliment the overall reading experience.

If you like dark, fairytale, fantasy horror then this little gem is worth the journey alongside the mermaid and the plague doctor! Less should be said about a novella this size as the surprise should best be left to the enjoyment of the reader.

Thank you Netgalley and Titan Books for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

"The Salt Grows Heavy" by Cassandra Khaw follows a mermaid and her companion a plaque doctor on their journey but soon find a group of children who hunt each other that personally connect to themselves.


I would give "The Salt Grows Heavy" by Cassandra Khaw a 5-star review because, I really liked how the uniqueness of the writing and the concept of this, I really like the championship between the two main characters, this really reminds me of the Little Mermaid of twisted and dark which really speaks to me.

Eerie is an understatement. But I loved how gory and twisted this story was. It follows the story of a mermaid who was married to a abusive husband who cut out her tongue. After the birth of their children, we are transported to a world very dystopian as the mermaid looks back at her daughters tearing into the flash of their father. She goes on a journey with a mysterious man in a plague mask who is akin to Frankenstein's monster, and the two set out to discover why a group of boys are hunting down and killing each other.

It's gruesome, sardonic, gory and all the things you want in a horror novel. A fantasy world where mermaids exist and end up marrying men and being mistreated, where they feed off the flesh of men after mating with them. It was a book that I ultimately couldn't put down, I just wanted to know more. Explore the world more and find out what was going to happen.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy!

I wasn't sure if I was going to dive into more of Cassandra Khaw's work after I read and loathed Nothing But Blackened Teeth, but anyone who's been around me long enough for me to talk their ear off about what I want to see more of in horror knows I've been craving mermaid horror, so I couldn't resist adding The Salt Grows Heavy to my TBR.

This gruesome, beautifully written novella is everything I've wanted from a mermaid book. Khaw gets the gruesome, alien weirdness of creatures that come from the sea, home of some of the world's most bizarre-looking animals, and thus presents us with a heroine who never lets us or the other characters she meets forget that she isn't human. In fact treating her like she is could well be the biggest mistake you ever make—just ask her husband.

The Salt Grows Heavy opens in a kingdom in shambles. The mermaid, lately a princess, has birthed her carnivorous daughters who gorge on the prince, their father, for their first meal. Now free from the man who dragged her from the sea, murdered her sisters and then made her eat her own tongue, the mermaid heads into the wilderness with a mysterious plague doctor as her only companion. It's not an easy world for either of them to live in, but when they stumble upon a village of children who have been indoctrinated into what is essentially a cult, their troubles really begin.

Just saying I loved this novella feels like such weak praise. This was one of those reading experiences where I opened the book, read the first two paragraphs and thought, "Ah, now this is going to be a five star read." Where Khaw's writing felt needlessly purple and confused in Nothing But Blackened Teeth it was luscious and lyrical here. This might not be the case for everyone, but for me horror only works when I give a damn about the characters I'm following; I don't have to like them, but I have to be invested in what they're going to do next, or what ill is going to befall them, and both the mermaid and the plague doctor were characters I couldn't get enough of. I love unapologetically monstrous women.

If you're a fan of Castlevania or you're tired of twee stories about mermaids or you're just craving a pretty perfect little horror book, The Salt Grows Heavy is one you need to get your (webbed) hands on.

Usually I wouldn't choose to read a novella- I like an epic story or some heavy character development, but a plague doctor and a mermaid? Too enticing to turn down.

I've previously read Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Khaw and was underwhelmed by the juvenile characters. The Salt Grows Heavy left a much better mark. Had it not been for the same beautiful prose I could have believed they were penned by differing authors.

It took me a beat to align myself with a mermaid on land, I couldnt visualise her appearance or movement and Khaw doesn't explain it right away.

We read from the first person perspective of the mermaid, giving insight to a character previously maimed and left unable to speak.
The non verbal communication between the mermaid and her plague doctor portrayed an intimate bond, both understanding eachother without need for conversation.

The gentle almost romantic relationship between mermaid and plague doctor travelling quietly through the woods gives a harder edge to the visceral horror The Salt Grows Heavy centres around.

A unique tale filled with symbolism and small nods to well loved literature (Macbeth, Frankenstein), Khaw splatters the pages with body horror gory enough to pitch my stomach but an ending that squeezes the heart.

A very intriguing take on the tale of The Little Mermaid and her Prince. The familiar elements were welcome, but the new twists that were added made this story different enough that it didn't feel like a simple retelling, I only wish it had been a little longer so that the scenes that we got in the Epilogue could have had more page time.

As expected, this tale is dark and gruesome, but beautifully written. If you're a fan of dark horror or Khaw's work in general then this should be right up your alley.

Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for this ARC. I’m sad to say I really didn’t like this.

This is about a mermaid and a plague doctor who stumble on a village of weird children who are ruled over by three “saints”. That’s all I could gather from the plot really.

The writing was just so pretentious with unnecessary words being used just to look fancy and intelligent when all it did was muddy the plot and half the time I had to decipher what was actually happening. If this had been more than the 100 or so pages it is then I would have DNFed it.

This came out on 2nd May if you want to check it out but it wasn’t for me.

This is the second Cassandra Khaw novella I’ve read, and this is without a doubt an author who keeps getting better and better. The Salt Grows Heavy is about a mermaid without a voice, who fell in love with a prince. Except the stories don’t get everything right, and when we meet the mermaid, it’s in the aftermath of a massacre committed by her children. Like the fairy tale, she cannot speak, but here it’s because her tongue has been cut out. Fleeing with the plague doctor, they escape into the wilderness where they come across a group of children who routinely chase down and sacrifice each other, confident in the abilities of “the saints” to bring them back.

Khaw has crafted a dark fairy tale that sucks you completely into this strange, semi-recognisable world. The things that happen here are rooted in horror, yes, but they’re the kind of things that can only really happen in a fairy tale, and it’s underscored by the POV of the mermaid. As we slowly learn the plague doctor’s past, we understand why they cannot leave the children behind with the saints, and despite her reservations, our mermaid can’t leave the doctor, either.

It's wonderfully crafted, with enough visceral scenes to underscore the horror of what’s happening, and with a real fairy tale sense to it. It easily feels like this could be a world where Sleeping Beauty is just waking up to a nightmare, and Snow White is trapped by the dwarves. Essentially, it takes the important elements and twists them, gently, into something horrific. Wonderful writing, easy to fall into it, and one that makes for good single sitting reading.

The Little Mermaid, but make it a feminist revenge story. Mix it with The Island of Doctor Moreau and Lord of the Flies. Add one agender plague doctor. Make it gory. No, gorier. Make it Grimm not H.C Andersen. Definitely not Disney. But with poetic language and a lot of words that people will have to look up (I'll admit that "chatoyant eyes" sound cooler than "lustrous eyes", but still, my Kindle dictionary function has never received such a workout. It even admitted defeat on a couple of words.)

I loved the concept behind this story. I only wish this was longer. I would have liked more world building and more time for the relationship between the mermaid and the plague doctor to play out. But brevity is a fairy tale trait, and I also think that the density of the language would have gotten exhausting if it was longer. My tolerance for gore was exceeded, but it fit the story. So that's a me problem, not a book problem. If you are fine with medical/body horror and like your fairy tales with a bit of bite (literally), then you'll probably enjoy this one.

My NetGalley review copy had the beginning/backstory at the end, after the epilogue, which I thought was a daring choice, which while effective also detracted from the ending. After asking around a bit, it seems that the final edit sprinkles the backstory throughout the story. Which sounds better. I think maybe I would have placed it all between the main story and the epilogue for maximum impact. (I'd love to discuss this with someone who has a regular edition of the book.)

I really struggled to get my head into this story. I feel the description gave such promise to an interesting story of a mermaid and a plague doctor, and then there was just such a lack of a story. I just couldn't get my mind into enough to really get to grips what was going on. It seemed very hardwork, and almost trying too hard to create a weird story. Not for me

The author’s writing is poetic, gripping and lyrical. Dive deep in mystery, Vengeance, addictive fantasy, treachery and conspiracy. As I delve deeper in the book, the mystery begins to grow, and secrets unveiled. Deep in the woods, across the village, the children are harbouring their own secret.

So after the murder of her husband and fall of the kingdom, the protagonist who is a mermaid and Dr Plague ventures to that village and finds out about sacrificing, hunting each other, grotesque stuff and some kind of magic. To save the children’s from tragic fate, they must delve into their past and navigate through the dark tunnel. Will they succeed in saving them? It’s a dark fairytale with a bizarre rituals and recherché spell.

Thanks to the Author, Publisher and Netgalley.

I have to DNF this as the writing style was way to descriptive and I had no knowledge of what was actually going on. I liked the idea and concept of this book but it was just too hard to get into. Dnf'd at 11%

This was a truly captivating story despite (or because of?) the dark, gruesome content. The writing was rich although sometimes dense, equal parts grotesque and enchanting. I enjoyed the story but was glad it was short - kind of like an indulgent chocolate cake you couldn't eat too much of before you start feeling sick. My only criticism is that the prose sometimes became a little too confusing, slowing down the momentum of the story.

The Salt Grows Heavy is a horror novella about a mermaid and a plague doctor who end up in a strange village where children are hunted, harvested, and remade. A mermaid who was mutilated by her husband is now freed from him and travelling with a genderless plague doctor, when they find children hunting another child. What they uncover is three strange surgeons, known as 'saints', who have the power to cut people up and put them back together, and the children seem doomed for this to happen forever, unless the mermaid and the plague doctor can disrupt the cycle.

I wouldn't normally necessarily go for a mermaid story, even a horror one, but having read Khaw's earlier novella Nothing But Blackened Teeth I was intrigued by this one. There's some The Little Mermaid vibes in it, though it's really the central relationship and the story with the village that are most memorable, rather than the mermaid elements. The relationship between the mermaid and the plague doctor was my favourite part of the book, both with similarities in their pasts and their existence, and by the end, closely bonded despite the horror. The prose is filled with imagery and it might be an acquired taste, particularly as being a novella means that little is explained, but I quite liked how alongside the body horror you end up with something quite weird and unusual, sometimes even confusing.

Though it is pretty disorienting at times, The Salt Grows Heavy is also a good example of how the length of a novella can be good for horror, removing the need to really go into detail about how and why and rather focus on weird body horror and some strange characters. The dreamlike fantasy vibe of it wasn't what I'd usually enjoy, but I did like the character of the plague doctor and the weird horror of the story.

My thanks to Net Galley and Titan Books for a free e-ARC of "The Salt Grows Heavy" by Cassandra Khaw.
A Dark Fantasy Horror Novella with a captivating atmosphere.
The story is witnessed through the eyes of a mermaid that left the depths of the water for the outside world. She starts her narration with a cannibalistic apocalypse in wich her ravenous daughters devours their father and his kingdom.
In her memories we see how her husband decided to remove her tongue in an autosarcophagy ritual ment to keep her obedient. A much more darker reimagination of "The Little Mermaid".
The mermaid travels alongside an adrogynus plague doctor and we can see how important this companionship is for her.
The stumble upon a bizzare village in wich three self proclaimed saints have build around themselves a cult with macabre practices.
Deliciously dark.
My most conflicting feelings were towards the prose. Sometimes this was vivid and extremely beautiful, but other times it was dense with overcomplicated words that made me loose the tread of the story.