We need personalities, we need individuals, we need to understand the heroine’s interior life, all engagingly presented in this charming remake. A retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses by the Grimm Brothers, House of Salt and Sorrows is a hauntingly beautiful gothy fairy tale. The Grimms provided the blueprint, one might say, and a very good blueprint it is, but after two centuries of dominance by the realistic novel, we need more than the sketch of a fairy tale. Erin Craig works them all together with the modern storyteller’s more complex craft.

It’s a fairy tale, a young-adult romance (though gothic enough for adult readers) and a whodunit too. The only (small) problem I had with House of Salt and Sorrows was the mysterious boy. Annaleigh lives a sheltered life at Highmoor with her sisters and their father and stepmother. 'Step inside a fairy tale.' -Stephanie Garber, 1 New York Times bestselling author of Caraval In a manor by the sea, twelve sisters are cursed. But if the gender bias of the Grimms is exposed and rejected, their class orientation toward brave sailors rather than princes, and poor old women rather than duchesses, is magnified and applauded. This dark and atmospheric fairy tale inspired story is perfect for fans of Yellowjackets. The chapters move the plot in chronological order, beginning with Eulalie’s funeral. Craig contains 40 chapters and a brief epilogue but is not divided further into any sections. It isn’t rocket science, and it isn’t all magic either. The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Craig, Erin A. They figure things out for themselves, and she figures out who’s doing it too. All very Freudian, one might say, but unlike the Grimms’ princesses, Annaleigh and her sisters don’t need a brave little soldier to rescue them.

House of salt and sorrows book review