A young woman seeks to unravel her family’s dark secret in ‘House of Salt and Sorrows’
Life for the Thaumas sisters should be great. They live in a beautiful estate called Highmoor, their father’s military career made them famous, and they can buy the most fashionable gowns. So what’s the problem? They keep dying. That’s the sorrow — and the mystery — at the heart of “House of Salt and Sorrows,” the debut young adult novel by Memphis writer Erin A. Craig.
“Once there were twelve of us: the Thaumas Dozen,” says Annaleigh Thaumas, the novel’s protagonist. “Now we stood in a small line, my seven sisters and I…[h]ad we angered the gods? Had a darkness branded itself on our family, taking us out one by one? Or was it simply a series of terrible and unlucky coincidences?” Annaleigh is driven to find out whether her family is really cursed and what, if anything, she can do to protect them.
The book opens at the funeral of Eulalie Thaumas, the family’s most recent loss. Eulalie’s mysterious fall is the fourth death the family has suffered since losing their mother due to complications in childbirth. This means the family has been mourning for years — and what’s almost as bad as grieving the loss of numerous family members? Being a teenage girl repeatedly forced into public mourning. All black all the time, no dances, and no courting have been the standing family rules. Some of the younger sisters don’t even remember a time before their great sadness.
So when the Mr. Thaumas’ new, young bride suggests that the family come out of mourning early, the sisters readily agree. A new vibrancy fills Highmoor, and life feels hopeful once more. The sisters begin to venture out around their home on Salten Island again, and they find a magical gate that changes everything. This gate transports them anywhere they want to go throughout the kingdom. Their lives soon become filled with elaborate balls, endless dances and culinary delicacies on a nightly basis.
But dancing all night is not without
‘House of Salt and Sorrows’
By Erin A. Craig. Delacorte Press. 404 pages. $18.99.