Reviews

House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig

anigirl524's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes

4.0

fadedoldbooks's review against another edition

2.0

House of Salt and Sorrows is a gothic, fantasy, romance standalone loosely based off “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.” I for one am unfamiliar with that fairy-tale but it didn’t stop me from trying really hard to like this book… Yep sorry another shitty review.

This story started off great. I loved the dark fantasy world created by the author. Our main lead Annaleigh lives with her sisters, father and stepmother in Highmoor. Annaleigh has been plagued with the deaths of sisters and of course her mother for the last 5 years. However, the circumstances surrounding the latest death of her eldest sister Eulalie is suspicious to say the least. Annaleigh is determined to find out what really happened whilst also attending many balls with her sisters through a secret door hidden in Highmoor. THIS SOUNDS SO COOL RIGHT? Yeah it sounds great until the mystery just drags on and on and on…

The sisters have no personality. Annaleigh loves her sisters-WE GET IT! I don’t need to be reminded at every page. The eldest living Thaumas girl, Verity just wants to find a husband and Cassius (who is our love interest) seems super suss. To a point where the plot-twist doesn’t even seem believable. Like AT ALL. Speaking of Cassius… I’ve discovered just how silly insta-love is. Especially when there is NO TENSION WHATSOEVER!

The whole mystery surrounding the deaths of the Thaumas girls just became really messy. The author used the “is this really happening or is it all an illusion and our main character is actually crazy” trope. Which okay maybe I wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t all flung in my face in the last 80 or so pages. This made the end hard to follow and not consistent with the world the author had created prior. It also shits me when an author decides to just add in random things without any sort of background exposure. I’m reading and all of a sudden there’s gods and tricksters and other weird fantasy shit going down. Like hold up. I’m not going to say I could have done a better job because I’m not an author; but if the gods were woven into the story previously it would have felt more believable.

I did like this book but as it went on it just became repetitive and dull. It almost felt like everything was thrown in at the end to make the reader feel like it was worthwhile. I had no connection to any of the characters which left me feeling like I was in a slump. Although inconsistent the world building did make-up for the negatives.

Final thoughts: dark, inconsistent, dull
Rating - 2 ★★

debster1982's review against another edition

4.0

A great dark fantasy.

lynnierhodes's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

klindtm's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

xchickadee's review against another edition

5.0

This story is based on the Brother’s Grim tale Twelve Dancing Princesses. I have never read it. But I hope to after reading this beautiful book.

This story follows Annaleigh. It starts off with a funeral of her older sister Euilie. And talks of a curse. For Euilie isn’t the first sister to pass away. And Annaleigh believe these deaths are not just accidents, she believes her sisters were murdered. She starts to believe the curse is real.

Erin wrote a beautiful story. All the twists and turns were amazing. The romance was an amazing slow burn, for me. The love of the sisters and the love they had for their father was beautiful.

I was honestly shocked with the few plot twists that were in the story. I can’t recommend this book enough. If you love family, magic, and curse, please read this. I can’t wait to read more by Erin!

meganraep's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

hellobookbird's review against another edition

3.0

We are born of the Salt, we live by the Salt, and to the Salt we return.

Annaleigh lives a sheltered life at Highmoor, a manor by the sea, with her sisters, their father, and stepmother. Once they were twelve, but loneliness fills the grand halls now that four of the girls' lives have been cut short. 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.

Disturbed by a series of ghostly visions, Annaleigh becomes increasingly suspicious that the deaths were no accidents. 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. Because who—or what—are they really dancing with?

I liked this well enough. The ambiance was darker and eerie, definitely what I was in the mood for, but to call this a Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling I think is a bit of a stretch. (Keep in mind I've never actually read the original, just various retelling versions so I might be slightly biased.) To me, a retelling takes a base idea and makes it new. With [b:House of Salt and Sorrows|39679076|House of Salt and Sorrows|Erin A. Craig|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1544071699l/39679076._SY75_.jpg|61277707] (best title, btw), I felt it started completely fresh, dropped the shoes and dancing in the middle, and then sorta picked up on the original story and then took off on a completely different tangent altogether.

I wasn't sure whether this was supposed to be a ghost story, a fairytale retelling, or a fantasy full of gods.

Let's start with the ghost stories: Verity, the youngest of the sisters, has been seeing the ghosts of her dead sisters. Being a gifted artist, she sketches their visitations every time it happens...making for a very macabre collection. Annaleigh first believes that it is Verity's way to come to terms with her sister's recent death...until she, too, starts seeing things.

None of the visitations make sense to me or even presume to work as foreshadowing. Then they suddenly drop off in favor of fashion.

Show me debauched nightmares or sunniest daydreams. Come not as you are but as you wish to be seen.

Which brings us to the fairytale retelling: the first inkling you get that this is a retelling is at a third of the way through with the mention of dancing shoes the cobbler claimed would last the whole season (spoiler: they don't last) and Pontus' magic door that leads to anywhere the sea god, or imaginative girls, wish to go (spoiler: to balls because hello).

The first ball seems completely ordinary. No fairies, no Underhill, nothing nefarious, just a good time with pretty dresses, cute boys, and dancing girls. Aside from their enjoyment of dressing up, nothing compels them to keep going to the balls...until later.

To midnight balls. And satin dress. And dancing. Always dancing!

Halfway through the book, we have a drunken celebration where the girl's father, Ortun, proclaims to the gathered friends and family that he's completely stumped at how his girls keep going through so many shoes. After a round of teasing, Ortun drunkenly declares that anyone that could find out what mischief his girls were up to would be provided with their own pair of shoes...nay! They can have their choice of one of the girls to marry...include Camille, heir to Highmoor! But this was a mere blip on the radar because it drops off almost immediately after the mention in favor of...what?

The High Mariner says Pontus created our islands and the people on them. [...] When his creation was molded just so—two arms, two legs, a head, and a heart—Pontus breathed some of his own life into it, making the first People of the Salt. So when we die, we can’t be buried in the ground. We slip back into the water and are home.

Well, gods of course! But not Pontus, the sea god. No, we have other gods.

Spoiler

Ones we've never heard of or been properly introduced. These gods are part of the rest of the world outside Salen...which would have been way less jarring if we'd actually had some world building to set up these gods first. The end is a confusing jumble of ghosts-not-ghosts, balls-not-balls, and gods and demi-gods all tangled up before it unspools to the ending conclusion.

I would have enjoyed this book way more if I'd had the background of the various gods from the beginning. Why didn't Craig do this? Whyyyy?! It's such a cool concept!

Ah, well. I fell for a pretty cover and a spooky promise.

Recommended for those (on sale or from the library) that like a spooky story and don't mind an insta-love romance.

sydneygu's review against another edition

5.0

would have preferred a darker ending... but overall a nice deviation from typical fantasy

stellabellasugarprincess's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0