Hardcover, 128 pages
Published May 12, 2023 by Titan Books.
Myths are full of lies. This is not one of them.
Fleeing the downfall of an empire, a mermaid and her plague doctor companion escape into the eerie shadows of a wintery forest.
Amongst the bark and snow they are drawn into ancient games for ageless children – a murderous hunt of blood and sacrifice – deep in the woods, where three who call themselves ‘saints’ rule over them all like gods.
Trapped in a feverish nightmare of masked monsters, stitches and surgeons, and needle teeth, the mermaid must embrace all of her cruelty and hungers to free the children.
I loved this and I needed to sit with it a while after I finished, before starting my next book. It's a body-horror/fairytale/love story between a 'mermaid' on land and her (plague) doctor, as they intervene in a morbid cult run by three false saints. It's like nothing I've read before (okay, maybe it's a bit T. Kingfisher-y - a good thing) and it's really beautifully written.
I quite enjoyed this dark fairy tale / body horror novella about the relationship between a mermaid and a plague doctor, as they investigate mysterious violent children in the woods in the thrall of three surgeon saints. I enjoyed the prose quite a bit, but I am also a sucker for stories about monsters and bodies, broken and (re)constructed.
(Also seriously though, I will content warn for on page violence, death, and gore. Various characters are eviscerated several times on page.)
The ebook that I read also included the short story "And In Our Daughters, We Find a Voice", which can be read here: www.thedarkmagazine.com/daughters-find-voice/
It's possible that I'm slow on the uptake, and so I didn't twig to the fact that the mermaid in The Salt Grows Heavy having her tongue cut out (losing her voice, in other words) was a riff on the little mermaid story. This short …
I quite enjoyed this dark fairy tale / body horror novella about the relationship between a mermaid and a plague doctor, as they investigate mysterious violent children in the woods in the thrall of three surgeon saints. I enjoyed the prose quite a bit, but I am also a sucker for stories about monsters and bodies, broken and (re)constructed.
(Also seriously though, I will content warn for on page violence, death, and gore. Various characters are eviscerated several times on page.)
The ebook that I read also included the short story "And In Our Daughters, We Find a Voice", which can be read here: www.thedarkmagazine.com/daughters-find-voice/
It's possible that I'm slow on the uptake, and so I didn't twig to the fact that the mermaid in The Salt Grows Heavy having her tongue cut out (losing her voice, in other words) was a riff on the little mermaid story. This short story prequel is much more obviously a retelling of that story. In my opinion, it can be read after or before The Salt Grows Heavy. It's got a similar tone (body horror, fairy tale vibes) but a different thematic focus.
A macabre fairytale, gruesome but beautifully written.
