january sale
25% off selected Scottish titles
25% off selected Scottish titles
Independent Scottish Bookshop
Every book chosen by a bookseller.
Independent Scottish Bookshop
In stock
Author: Cassandra Khaw
£8.95 3 for 2
A sensuous, haunting horror novella that reshapes mermaid myths into something dark, visceral and deeply unsettling. Full of creeping dread and gore — perfect for readers who enjoy gothic horror, if-the-sea-had-teeth stories.
dispatched by Royal Mail Tracked 48
We found The Salt Grows Heavy brutal, beautiful and deeply unsettling. It is not a comforting fairy tale, but a sharp and purposeful one that challenges how stories are told and who they are allowed to belong to.
As Independent Scottish booksellers, we write all of our descriptions personally, we hope you enjoy this one.
A mermaid and a plague doctor flee the wreckage of an empire and disappear into a forest locked in winter. Snow dulls the ground. Trees crowd close. The stories told about creatures like her have always been wrong, and this one refuses to soften what she is.
In The Salt Grows Heavy, the woods conceal a cruel order governed by three beings who call themselves saints. Children are kept there, bound into rituals of pursuit and sacrifice that feel both ancient and endless. Masks hide faces. Needles, stitches, and sharpened teeth shape the rules of survival. Nothing here is accidental, and nothing is merciful.
As the nightmare tightens, the mermaid is forced to reckon with the violence written into her body and her hunger for blood. Salvation, if it exists at all, will not come from purity or restraint. This is a dark, unsettling reworking of myth that leans into rot, care, and fury, and asks what monsters are allowed to do when the innocent are already being devoured.
Historical Fiction
Sci-Fi & Horror