Most of the action and excitement takes place in the last few chapters of the book.Īnnaleigh lives a sheltered life as the daughter of a Duke on a small island. I normally love fairy tale retellings but this one was very slow, you could have had this book be quite a bit shorter and the story would have been just as good. I was very excited to read this and it ended up being…okay. This was a retelling of the “Twelve Dancing Princesses”, which was my favorite fairy tale growing up. When Annaleigh’s involvement with a mysterious stranger who has secrets of his own intensifies, it’s a race to unravel the darkness that has fallen over her family – before it claims her next.” Because who – or what – are they really dancing with? The girls 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. 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.ĭisturbed by a series of ghostly visions, Annaleigh becomes increasingly suspicious that her sister’s deaths were no accidents.

Once there were 12, but loneliness fills the grand halls now that four of the girls’ lives have been cut short. “Annaleigh lives a sheltered life at Highmoor with her sisters and their father and stepmother. Length: 12 hours and 50 minutes (416 pages)

House of salt and sorrows book review