Read by Susan Dalian

From USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Khaw comes The Salt Grows Heavy, a razor-sharp and bewitching fairytale of discovering the darkness in the world, and the darkness within oneself. "Narrator Susan Dalian viscerally conveys the gruesome body horror while deftly capturing the lush imagery." - Library Journal "This brilliant novella is not to be missed." -Publishers Weekly, STARRED review You may think you know how the fairytale goes: a mermaid comes to shore and weds the prince. But what the fables forget is that mermaids have teeth. And now, her daughters have devoured the kingdom and burned it to ashes. On the run, the mermaid is joined by a mysterious plague doctor with a darkness of their own. Deep in the eerie, snow-crusted forest, the pair stumble upon a village of ageless children who thirst for blood, and the three "saints" who control them. The mermaid and her doctor must embrace the cruelest parts of their true nature if they hope to survive. A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Nightfire. CASSANDRA KHAW is an award-winning game writer and former scriptwriter at Ubisoft Montreal. Khaw's work can be found in places like The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, and Tor.com. Khaw's first original novella, Hammers on Bone, was a British Fantasy Award and Locus Award finalist, and their latest novella, Nothing But Blackened Teeth, was a USA Today bestseller, Bram Stoker Award nominee, and Indie Next Pick. "Devastatingly effective…a folklore-infused world that feels wholly unique. Expertly blending a gothic atmosphere with elements of splatterpunk, this brilliant novella is not to be missed." -Publishers Weekly, STARRED review "A feverishly gory, grotesquely beautiful and baroque fairy-tale-meets-love-sonnet. Cassandra Khaw's imagination is limitless." -Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts "Cassandra Khaw's writing is never more lyrical than when they're describing the knife in your heart. The bones of a fairy tale sunk deep in a charnel house of descriptive prose, an elegant confection with a blood-soaked core. I devoured it in one sitting." -T. Kingfisher, multi-award winning author of What Moves the Dead and Nettle & Bone "Khaw uses poetically beautiful words to tear open your chest and gnaw on your ribs in this needle-sharp novella." -Kaaron Warren, author of Slights and The Grief Hole "Cassandra Khaw's writing is immaculate, with every word carefully chosen for maximum impact. The Salt Grows Heavy is a truly mesmerizing story and one of the finest works of horror and dark fantasy I have ever read, dripping with a gruesome and disquieting passion." -Grimdark Magazine "Cassandra Khaw's steely prose is matched only by the inventiveness of their imagination. The Salt Grows Heavy demonstrates their continuing mastery of the novella form with a story Angela Carter would be jealous to have written." -John Langan, author of Corpsemouth and Other Autobiographies "A brutal and deadly romp whose language is as sharp and glittery as a scalpel made of ice. Strange and compelling, The Salt Grows Heavy is unlike anything else out there, a dark spell with needle-like teeth." -Brian Evenson, author of The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell and Song for the Unraveling of the World Praise for Nothing But Blackened Teeth A USA TODAY BESTSELLER * A Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy Award Finalist! * An Indie Next Pick! * An October LibraryReads Pick! "Brutally delicious! Khaw is a master of teasing your senses, and then terrorizing them!" -N.K. Jemisin, New York Times bestselling author of The Fifth Season "This is a glorious poem, a slow-motion collapse leading to the inevitable haunting. It is beautiful and it is brutal and it is heartbroken. Absolutely recommended." -Seanan McGuire, New York Times bestselling author of Eve

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