Short ... but sweet (in a dark way).

       Inventive, woefully short, well-written (though perhaps with a somewhat gratuitous usage of big, fancy words), The Salt Grows Heavy is a horror-fantasy novella that takes familiar fairy tale tropes and twists them and turns them on their head. It follows a mermaid and her plague doctor companion (neither character ever given a proper name) as they traverse through a tortured landscape, encountering a brutal tribe of murderous children and their horrific “saints.”

            The mermaid, who serves as our narrator, like Ariel in the famous story, can’t speak, though our mermaid has had her tongue cut out by her husband, who was devoured by their children, who then burned the kingdom to ashes. She is on the run with a mysterious plague doctor, a foreboding, dark companion who, unmasked, proves to be androgynous and stitched together, a “manufactured” being like a type of Frankenstein’s monster. They come across a group of brutal children who murder each other, brought back to life by their “saints,” who they see as gods, who are merely using them in a dark fairy tale version of a black market organ factory. The action is as gruesome as it sounds, more Grimm than Disney.

            The main problem with the novella is its length. Khaw has created an interesting world but spends little time exploring it. This, of course, follows the format of your average fairy tale: characters inhabit a world that is much like our own, yet strikingly different, but Khaw's juicy, macabre prose makes the reader want to know more. The same goes for her characters.

            In your everyday fairy tale, the characters often aren’t named, rather, are identified by trope: maiden, farmer, peasant, etc., and Khaw does the same, though her mermaid and plague doctor are not just one-dimensional archetypes. They are fascinating characters I would love to revisit.

            A short, wicked read that leaves you thirsty for more, The Salt Grows Heavy should appeal to fans of fantasy, horror, and fairy tales.