No matter where you were on the island, you could always taste the sea.” “Sickly-sweet incense still danced through the room but couldn’t quite block out the tang of salt. You get a true sense of the beliefs and history of the characters without it ever feeling like an info-dump. The book begins with a funeral, and three pages in I was fully immersed into the world that Craig crafted.

I was swept away immediately by this retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses by the Brothers Grimm. “We are born of the Salt, we live by the Salt, and to the Salt we return.” Also: I want a pair (or twelve) of those fairy shoes. The mood and Gothic atmosphere creep into her word choices, sweeping me away. Her descriptions are so vivid that I truly felt like I was watching a movie in my head while reading. I will be instantly buying any of Craig’s future books.Ĭraig’s writing is captivatingly descriptive without over burdening itself. I devoured my eARC in one sitting and stayed up until 4am to finish reading it. This debut Gothic fantasy is masterfully crafted, hauntingly atmospheric, and full of magic and love. I’ve been trying to find the words necessary to write this review for almost two weeks, but words cannot express how much I loved House of Salt and Sorrows. Narrative style: first person | Perspective(s): single

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When Annaleigh’s involvement with a mysterious stranger who has secrets of his own intensifies, it’s a race to unravel the darkness that has fallen over her family-before it claims her next. Because who-or what-are they really dancing with? Her sisters have been sneaking out every night to attend glittering balls, dancing until dawn in silk gowns and shimmering slippers, and Annaleigh isn’t sure whether to try to stop them or to join their forbidden trysts. Each death was more tragic than the last-the plague, a plummeting fall, a drowning, a slippery plunge-and there are whispers throughout the surrounding villages that the family is cursed by the gods.ĭisturbed by a series of ghostly visions, Annaleigh becomes increasingly suspicious that the deaths were no accidents. Once they were twelve, but loneliness fills the grand halls now that four of the girls’ lives have been cut short. In a manor by the sea, twelve sisters are cursed.Īnnaleigh lives a sheltered life at Highmoor, a manor by the sea, with her sisters, their father, and stepmother.

The house of salt and sorrows