The Salt Grows Heavy is by far one of my favourite re-tellings of The Little Mermaid now. As someone who grew up in Denmark, I’ve definitely read and watched my fair share of Danish and international re-tellings but this is by far the best. I’m obviously a sucker for horror so that plays a big part in why I love The Salt Grows Heavy but horror can, obviously, not just exist on its own and be good. It also demands one hell of a storyteller and Cassandra Khaw is exactly that. Their prose is truly amazing. They’re able to take you on a linguistic journey which, while it may sometimes be an arduous journey, is so so rewarding. I just am absolutely in love with their writing and for every novella I’ve read by them I’m amazed more and more. I really cannot wait to continue following their literary journey.

I should’ve honestly written down all my thoughts right after I read this to sound more coherent and Smart™️ but the TL;DR of the matter is that I loved the writing, I loved the unique voice and I really really loved the relationship between the mermaid and the plague doctor. It was tender, respectful and beautiful.

The choice to include The Saints and the children playing a dangerous game of murder and immortality helps solidify what kind of people the mermaid and the plague doctor are, in this new world, and it also creates genuine suspense and worry. All in all, very good. I only have a digital ARC of this so I MUST go buy a physical copy and preferably the other cover version cos that’s my favourite.

This was a bit of a fever dream of a book and for most of the time, I wasn't exactly sure what was going on. With that being said, I thought that the relationship between the Plague Doctor and the protagonist was very well captured and was quite sweet, given the visceral and gruesome events surrounding them. There was a lot of gore in this book, but this was interspersed with really lyrical writing, leaving me a bit nonplussed and not entirely sure how I feel!
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

If you want a cover that sets the tone perfectly for a book, this is it! In fact, the cover drew me to The Salt Grows Heavy in the first place. Cassandra Khaw has been on my radar for a while, with Nothing But Blackened Teeth on my TBR, however, this is my first book of theirs and I went in blind.

I devoured this novella (pun intended) and could not get enough of the poetic writing, both beautiful and creepy at once. The Salt Grows Heavy follows a creature, referred to as a mermaid, as she flees from her husband's palace alongside a Plague Doctor companion.

Content Warnings (not limited to): Body Horror, Domestic Abuse, Death of Children, Torture, Kidnapping

This was a tough one to rate for me. This was an incredibly complex story. All the way through all I could think was how the writing style was so poetic and lyrical, as if written by a modern Shakespeare. Every word was so metodically chosen.

This follows a mermaid snatched from the sea by a Prince, silenced with the removal of her tongue, in which we find out he's been killed by their offspring. She is whisked away by her plague doctor in what seems to be a dark love story between them. They run into kids playing a sadistic game of cat and mouse (or pig according to them) in which they kill for sport. This brings them to the children's "kings" or gods as they think ofthemselves, no more than dark mystical surgens. These surgens can restore a second birth after death, but our heroes can see the darkness through their showboating and egos. They set out to save the kids but things go very bad.

This was a poignant love story, mixed with body horror. Towards the end we get the full story of what happened to the Prince leading to his demise. A truly excellent story that I didn't comprehend until towards the end. Make sure to have a dictionary near by though!

I also have a video review on tikotok.

It is fairly well known that modern fairy tales have been modernised from the more wilder and darker folk tales. Both are often cautionary - be careful what you wish for; keep to the path and so many other warnings. The sharpness of the warning is to ensure children behave themselves. But it’s also the boundary of fantasy and horror being played with. For the audit audience who loved both we have worlds of magic and also places that really won’t be safe to tread. In Cassandra Khaw’s sumptuous dark tale The Salt Grows Heavy we get an unusual pair of charcters face up to great evil, lost children and the reader will be mulling over what makes for a happy ending for a long time afterwards.

A duo walk into the forest. One a mysterious masked plague doctor full of their own secrets. The other a former Queen; who some called a mermaid and who was a prisoner who with their doctor’s help survived imprisonment and released her daughters who are an entire kingdom. The two now explore the wider world and in the icy forest find children playing a deadly game of hide and seek. They do so on behalf of the Three Saints - Doctors who know the secrets of life and death; who can do wonders with any flesh and whom the plague doctor knows and is wary of. Now the mermaid and doctor alone have to consider if survival is possible.

My one caveat is that it helps if you know Khaw’s earlier story ‘And In Our Daughters, We Find A Voice’ w deeply brilliant reimagining of the The Little Mermaid and it’s very dark and brilliantly horrible. This is given at the end of the novella but could slightly confuse a brand new reader. That is my sone issue with the story because it’s just a wonderful dark tale skilfully sitting between the lands of horror and fantasy.

We have the traditional elements - a dark forest; lost children, strange magical men to bargain with and yet this is not at all suitable for the very young. Our children like to kill another and rejoice when the Saints make them live again. The Saints are made of various body parts not their own and the whole tale is filled with viscera and blood but Khaw makes it all darkly principal in their decorative and delicious use of language.

For this tale the mystery of the Plague Doctor gets explored who was more an unusual character who took our mermaid’s side. Now we find out their backstory and why they so identified with the mermaid as a prisoner. The plague doctor’s relationship to the Saints explains a lot and also give the characters their impetus to stay and get involved. Is this good people fighting evil? Probably not perhaps more monsters fighting monsters to get a sense of justice is a better explanation of what is to come.

All told via our mermaid’s narration and Khaw ensures that we know that while she may look human she is not in her insights and also her physiology. Saints who play with Mermaids are riding a lot and as the two sides decide to abandon cat and mouse games the finale is bloody, spectral and yet managed to have moments of tenderness down in but possibly not one you’ll find Mr Anderson try to tell at bedtime.

The Salt Grows Heavy is a wonderful dark tale that is full of surprises, Khaw’s trademark skill in using language and delicious visceral horror. It’s the very unsafe trip into the forest with no fairy godmother to assist - but isn’t that alway the more fun journey? Highly recommended!

The Salt Grows Heavy is a horror novella by author, Cassandra Khaw. This is my second read by this author, the first being Nothing but Blackened Teeth. I first heard about this author through the Books of Horror Facebook group and after reading Nothing but Blackened Teeth and loving it, I was excited to read something else by this author. This author knows how to write creepy stories. The story to me felt like a mixture of dark fantasy and horror folklore tale. The imagery is stunning and the prose feels otherworldly. You won’t want to miss this one.

“And you shall know her by the trail of dead.”

This is the story of a toothy mermaid and her plague doctor. If you need to know more than that before deciding this is absolutely the book for you, then maybe this is not the book for you. For everyone else, it’s just as dark and weird and strangely beautiful as you’re hoping it will be.

It’s body horror. It’s a love story. It’s hunger. It’s not giving up on one another. It’s a story you should know as little about as possible before you prise open the pages and devour the viscera for yourself.

The writing is gorgeous. Although this read has its own style, it reminded me of Seanan McGuire’s books when she’s writing as Mira Grant. A number of reviewers have already described it as lyrical and I can’t think of a better word to capture the experience of this book. However, I’m certain the author could come up with ten alternatives.

For someone who simply loves words, this novella was practically a playground for me. I stumbled across so many words that were new to me so part of the joy of this read was learning what they all meant. A couple of my new favourites are intaglio and cicatrice.

“Could you assemble a new life from nothing but debris?”

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to read this novella. I can’t wait to read it again!

The Salt Grows Heavy is everything I want in a novella. It’s gorgeously poetic, harrowingly lyrical and brazenly self confident.

This short story of a mermaid and her plague doctor is tight, dark and incredibly well paced.

My only gripe would be that it does feel like a snippet from a much larger work so I’d love a return to this verse in a much larger way in due time but damn. What. A. Story.

The cover drew me in, maybe dragged is a better analogy, but the lyrical prose kept me there. Not quite a whole novel, this novella is the epitome of what I enjoy about horror. However, I felt like the stakes never got that high, the tension not very discernable. If you’ve never read a Khaw book before I would recommend this, although sometimes it did feel like part of something bigger.

Thank you for the advanced copy; received and reviewed in good faith.
This is my first read of Cassandra Khaw’s work. I had heard decent reviews about ‘Nothing But Blackened Teeth’, so I was looking forward to reading ‘The Salt Grows Heavy’. This book should qualify as a novella, boasting a rich atmosphere, interesting characters and graphic scenes of violence and body horror. Warning, however, there are moments when the violence is focused upon children. The tale picks up with a mermaid and plague doctor in flight when they come across a bloody ritual performed by children. Surgeons are also introduced as those with the ability to reset this horrific form of play.
There is a sense that this is written like a video game scenario. A vagueness of situation is quelled by universal principles of right and wrong in an attempt to get readers onside. The vibe given lends itself to a From Software game, and the setting and tone should chime with anyone familiar with Bloodborne.
It is a reimagining of a mermaid’s tale; one geared towards a more horrific telling. Details of mermaid lore come too late, however, and are attached at the very end of this story, after the reader has endured the near God-like abilities of the main character. There is no threat that cannot be overcome so tension never really grows. Written with such vagueness, it feels like this book could have been part of a larger story, however edited and compiled to prolong a reader’s attention.
People who like Khaw’s work might get a kick out of this; unfortunately, I did not.

Can I just say this cover is beautiful and sets up the tone and imagery of this little book.

A beautifully written imaginative novella.
Don’t go into this thinking it’s a fairy tale of a beautiful mermaid, it is far from that. It can get quite disturbing in places.

Please check trigger warnings whilst going into this one though, due to body horror.

I don’t want to go into too much without spoiling it but recommend for the horror enthusiast :-)!

Thanks to @netgalley and @titanbooks for the ARC

This was a nasty good time. It's a book that could easily have been 3 times as long and gotten bogged down in world building. Instead, Khaw throws readers in at the depend and relies on the briefest of intros to set her world up. For parts of this gory fairy tale I was struggling to keep up, but the atmosphere is so wonderfully rich I really didn't care. Memorable and effective fantasy horror.

*Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for an Earc in exchange for an honest review.*

Wonderfully grotesque, deliciously vicious, this is a novel not for the faint of heart. But dor those who do venture into its salt-soaked pages, they will find a take unlike any other- the Little Mermaid, but not as the frail, passive creature so beloved of modern culture.

MY THOUGHTS
I am absolutely spellbound. Completely in love. Khaw has written an absolute masterpiece and I am fully in love. Everything about this book was stunning- and so short as well? This has the same vibes as when you watch an old children's tv show and its so creepy and weird but entrancing at the same time except there's nothing child-like about the gore in The Salt Grows Heavy.

PLOT
So fast paced and crammed with intricate characters from an androgynous plague doctor to three surgeon-saints reigning over a dominion of children. This was horror at it's most sublime, I could have easily devoured another hundred pages.
The little mermaid in this novel is not little nor is she a sweet young mermaid. She is ravenous, she is raging and finally she is free from the falsehoods that constrained her and her daughter/sisters.

Cassandra Khaw's writing is like nothing I have ever read before. It is clear they are master of their craft, and I cannot wait to see what else they will set their mind to creating in the coming years.


5/5 stars for plot, writing, characters and setting.

Quick info: Morally ambiguous/ LGBTQ+ cast/horror/ twisted fairytale/ slaughter or be slaughtered

Perhaps the most beautifully told (very) Dark Fairy tale retelling I have ever come across. The starting point is after the mermaid has married the prince, and it is no 'happy ever after'. The mermaid is on the run (still has her legs) and finds her self in a dark forest,accompanied by a strange 'Plague Doctor', When they stumble upon children playing a hunting game with the kids taking turns being the target of the hunt, the Plague Doctor insists on further investigation.
The writing is lush and gothic, and I can not wait to get my hands on more of Khaw's works.