House of Salt and Sorrows

O.W.L. Readathon - Defence Against Dark Arts
read a book set at or in the sea

This is a retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses and I don't know what to tell you, I loved the Barbie movie and loved this book. It was gothic and creepy and amazing and yes, the main character had the personality of a shoe but to be honest, just like in Warcross I had too much fun to care.

Still would love to actually have an interesting main character sometime soon.

This was so freaking AWESOME

I jumped back and forth about giving this book 4 or 5 stars but I'm sticking with 5 stars. I got from this book what I was expecting from a book a read a few books back..AND I DIDN'T GET. AT ALL....and I wasn't even expecting from this one. So win for me.

I'm not well versed in the story of The Twelve Dancing Princesses but I remembered enough that I knew what it was. And I was excited for 1. a retelling and 2. a retelling that wasn't Beauty and the Beast ( I love BatB retellings..but there are SO MANY).

This book was a YA retelling, gothic horror, murder mystery with a little slow burn romance thrown in. What? That's a lot. And you know what...YOU KNOW WHAT...it was well done. For a debut novel? Shut up. WHAT ELSE YOU GOT, ERIN??

At one point, I didn't know what was real and what wasn't. What was a lie and what wasn't. Definitely had a creepy atmosphere to it. I can't say that the first half was fast paced....But I was already drawn in by the spooky vibes. I'm not going to lose sleep but I'm also not the target demographic. All in all...definitely worth the read if you ask me. And if you didn't ask me..then why are you here? O.O

Review coming soon.

Definitely a super fun read, especially during spooky season. The eerieness of the book was super captivating and unique, but I found myself losing interest during the last third which felt like an ending I've read over and over again.

I'm still very ambivalently confused about this book. I was hoping for something spooky as we moved into the Halloween season. And barring that, I was really looking for something atmospheric and rich with gothic romance. What I got was a story that while certainly aware of those things and trying very hard to achieve them, thought the best way to do that was to throw everything in the kitchen into one pot.

House of Salt and Sorrows follows the second oldest daughter, Annaleigh, of a family of seven girls that were once twelve. In five years, Annaleigh has lost her mother and several of her older sisters, the last of which under what she sees as mysterious circumstances. As her family, especially her newly remarried father, decides to move forward and shake off rumors of a curse, Annaleigh starts seeing ghosts and comes to believe that her sister was murdered. Also, there's a magical portal to some fancy balls, because this is inspired by the story of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, though it honestly could have done without that plot element as well as several others.

So, there's a lot going on here. There's a ghost story, and a murder mystery, and a romance with a handsome outsider, and a court drama, and a high fantasy magic system and world building. Its never really woven together, like, at all. I was never really sure why the story was taking the diversions it was. Why are we spending all this time on this romance when the love interest's personality is basically nonexistent? What was the point of the dancing and the balls when it took so long to get there and its introduction to the story is completely unrelated to the murder mystery at the core? Is this story about gods and monsters? Families and ghosts? A girl driven mad with grief? Its hard to call a story atmospheric when each plot point isn't given the time to create that atmosphere.

I could definitely feel the homages to classic gothic literature (there were elements that invoked Edgar Allen Poe, Shirley Jackson and Daphne du Maurier) which I have no doubt were intentional. But I don't really like hauntings (or even suggestions of hauntings) mixed up with firmer magic systems. If Craig wanted this to be about trickster gods, the idea of trickster gods should have been introduced at the beginning, not three quarters into the story. It actually took me a while to realize “Oh, when they talk about their gods, they're not talking about “God” they're talking about actual magical beings that effect their world.” I don't know, maybe I'm being very particular about my horror, but I feel like that kind of thing rips the bed sheet right off your spooky ghost. That might be why I was struggling with the way Annaleigh's family responded to her suspicions - what the story needed was non-believers, not just people with a vague disinterest in an honest investigation.

Getting out of the weeds a bit, I wish Annaleigh was more of a character. She's pretty bland at the beginning, and grows a little bit as the story goes on as a competent “second-in-line” figure, but she's still felt very undefined. Her love interest is so hollow he's practically a ghost himself. He's a mop of curly hair and good manners, but other than that he has no personality. The dialogue felt hokey and unnatural. The pacing is just not right for this kind of story - the scary bits are not tight enough, the slower moments and more contemplative plot elements are given little time to breath and flesh out. I appreciate that in the final act Craig really went all out with scary imagery, and while the detail she went into to create this seafaring culture was lovely, I thought the prose was just alright. And like many YA books I've been reading lately, while it has some mature elements, this felt like it was geared for a much younger audience.

House of Salt and Sorrows is readable but far from riveting, and everything it goes for felt weak and watered down. Points for trying, Craig is clearly a horror fan - the love is there but the skill really isn't.

3.5 stars. This was a fun, occasionally spooky, retelling of the 12 dancing princesses. It was gripping and easy to read. I only had two issues with it.

1) The Romance - yuck (but then again, I'm not a fan of romance and I'm not the intended audience for this book - I am sure my 15 year old self would've swooned over the stolen kisses and declarations of love.... but as an adult... just no)

2) The Horror - It wasn't dark enough for me. There were some amazing, spine-tingling scenes, but overall it didn't terrify me the way I expected. Once again - could this be because it is a YA book? Probably.

But the positives outweigh these minor gripes. It takes you on a journey filled with Gods and Monsters, ghosts and murder, secrets and love. Suspend your disbelief and have fun!

Just wow!! This was such a thrill ride. Magical realm, chaos, death, love, family...couldn't ask for a better adventure.

4.5 stars. I was thoroughly creeped out + I'm a sucker for sister relationships.

~Check out all my reviews over on The Bent Bookworm!~ Am I the only person who didn't love this book? It has a 4+ star rating on GoodReads! I just don't see how...I wanted to like it. I wanted to LOVE it! Come on, just look at that cover. It's stunning. Sadly though, the cover was really the only thing I could 100% get behind with this book.The Good- The writing itself was quite good. I would read something else by this author without hesitation. It was just the actual plot and storyline I didn't care for.- As I've already said, the cover!- The creep factor in the last half of the book really amped up and was extremely well done. I completely doubted the conclusions I had already drawn, haha! The author was great at dragging the reader right along into all the confusion and dream-in-a-dream confusion of reality along with the characters.The Bad and the Ugly- Our heroine, who is built up as this fearless, snarky, go-getter in the first few chapters of the book, takes one look – LITERALLY one look – at a handsome man and becomes a tongue-tied, bumbling, helpless girl. She's had a sheltered life, has met very few men outside one of her family's servant's sons and her father, and all of a sudden she sees a stranger and completely falls for him. Really? This is 2019, I thought we were past this sort of ridiculousness.- The first half of the book is almost all dancing and balls and fancy dresses and shoes. I wanted to stab my eyeballs out. How many descriptions of dancing shoes and ballgowns does one really need? Like nothing was happening except they were dancing. I get it, it's a retelling of the 12 Dancing Princesses...but COME ON.- The villain of the story was SO OBVIOUS and it was such a worn-out trope I wanted to fling the book across the room (except, I was reading on my iPad, so I couldn't). Can stepmoms catch a freaking break already?- At the very end, I actually thought the author was going to redeem the story by not wrapping everything up in a pretty little bow as far as the romance. BUT OH NO! There must be a romantic interest and there must be a pairing up or I guess it's not a good YA story.2.5/5 stars. If you're a die-hard fan of retellings you might enjoy it more, also if you're more of a love-at-first-sight person than I am. Otherwise I'll have to recommend you skip it, but keep an eye out for other books by the author!Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.Blog Twitter Bloglovin Instagram

3.5 stars

I really enjoy fairy tale retellings. I have never read one about The Twelve Dancing Princesses before.

I enjoyed it. It was a little slow in spots. But I loved the characters and the setting. It is very creepy and atmospheric. I kind of wish I would've waited until October to read it. It is just what I look for in a fall read.

I received a copy from Net Galley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

2.5 Stars

Pros:
- World: I really enjoyed the world this book takes place in. I enjoyed the idea of Highmoor and the Thalmus curse. It was fascinating to see how their lives were secluded from the rest of the world but still very much involved due to their father's profession.
- Religion: I am saying religion even though that may be the wrong term, but I liked how each area of the world worshiped a different God that was based on their livelihoods. But that being said, I feel like we did not get to know enough about the Gods others than Pontus which the Thalmus girls worshiped.

Cons:
-Twist: I predicted who was going to be the cause of her sisters' death way at the beginning and I never wavered with this guess, even when the author tried to get us to believe it was someone else. I feel like she picked the next obvious person after the one that is implied in the summary.
- Pacing: This book struggled to move the story forward. I feel like everything happened in the last 15% of the book and it took forever for things to happen that are stated in the summary. That is something that really irks me lately in YA when a summary tells you something that as a reader you do not actually find out about until way into the book.

Overall, this book was a disappointment. I wanted so much more with the mystery of her sisters mysteriously dying off, this mysterious stranger, and these magical balls the sisters were attending. But I feel like I did not quite get that and instead got this overly drawn out story that took way too long to pick up and grab my attention. It took me 12 days to read this and that was mostly because I never felt the need to pick this up to see what would happen. Eventually, I just told myself I needed to finish so I could start the next books on my TBR for the month.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a review copy of this book.