House of Salt and Sorrows

House of Salt and Sorrows (2019) is a YA dark fantasy novel by Erin A. Craig. The novel weaves an atmospheric tale of mystery, in which 18-year-old Annaleigh Thaumas and her 12 sisters navigate tragedy. The Thaumas family resides in the imposing Highmoor Manor by the sea, and one by one, Annaleigh’s sisters die. Convinced of foul play, she seeks the truth. Inspired by the fairy tale “The Twelve Dancing Princesses,” this dark retelling is filled with elaborate balls and blurred realities. Among other accolades, House of Salt and Sorrows was a Goodreads Choice Award Semifinalist for Best Debut Novel (2019), New York Times bestseller, and one of the Wall Street Journal Best Sci-Fi Books of 2019.

This guide is based on the 2019 Kindle e-book edition published by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books.

Content Warning: House of Salt and Sorrows includes disturbing imagery, several deaths, murders, and a stillborn birth in the Chapter 38 Summary.

Plot Summary

Eighteen-year-old Annaleigh Thaumas, middle daughter of Duke Ortun’s 12 daughters, attends the funeral of eldest sister Eulalie. Eulalie’s body returns to the Salann Islands’ sea and the family’s god Pontus. In the past, the Thaumas family lost four family members: Annaleigh’s sister Ava died of a plague, her sister Octavia fell off a library ladder, her sister Elizabeth drowned in a tub, and her mother, Cecilia, died giving birth to the youngest sister, six-year-old Verity. After these tragedies, the family is rumored to be cursed—but Annaleigh doubts the curse. Mourning Eulalie, the family wears black and covers their mirrors for months. At Eulalie’s wake, Morella, the remaining eight sisters’ new stepmother, chats with Annaleigh about cheering up Ortun. Morella announces that Eulalie will be missed, but the Thaumas family will begin anew with her pregnancy.

Morella urges Ortun to organize a ball for the triplets’ 16th birthday, so he announces their days of mourning are over. Annaleigh feels uncomfortable with this shift in tone and secretly questions why Eulalie died while on the cliffs alone at night. She travels to town for clues, asking the fishermen who found Eulalie’s body for information. She believes Eulalie was meeting a lover whom she ultimately rejected and he pushed her from the cliffs. Annaleigh then meets a handsome man named Cassius and is attracted to him.

Verity, the youngest sister at age six, shows Annaleigh her horrifying drawings, which depict the deceased Ava, Octavia, and Elizabeth, as well as Eulalie, whose injuries Verity herself never saw. The youngest claims she sees their deceased sisters, as they speak with her and steal her blankets at night. Though Annaleigh is unsettled, no one believes her about the ghosts.

Fisher, an old friend of Annaleigh’s and apprentice to the lighthouse keeper, comes to help with preparations for the triplets’ birthday ball. The ball is lovely but lacks dancing partners. Annaleigh’s sister Camille worries no one will propose to the sisters due to their family’s rumored curse. Fisher tells Annaleigh that fairy tales have spoken of a door that leads to other worlds. Pontus and other gods and goddesses use the doors since they intervene in mortal affairs. When Camille cries over the unfairness of the curse, Annaleigh comforts her with the door story. Camille wishes to travel to a new land where no one knows of the curse. Later, the eight sisters and Fisher set out on a scavenger hunt. They find the magical door from the story, which leads them to extravagant balls throughout the kingdom of Arcannia. At these balls, the sisters dance with handsome strangers. The sisters start dancing every night, addicted to the thrill of escape. Ortun becomes suspicious about their worn shoes.

Meanwhile, Annaleigh keeps looking for clues regarding Eulalie’s murder. She meets with Edgar, the local clock maker, who admits he was Eulalie’s lover. They were planning to run away because Eulalie uncovered a secret. Before they could elope, Edgar saw someone push her off the cliffs. Soon after, Edgar is found dead in the town square; Fisher says he jumped from his shop’s window. When Annaleigh shares her theory about Eulalie’s murder, Ortun and Camille dismiss her. Meanwhile, she keeps running into Cassius, and they develop a close bond.

During winter, Annaleigh starts to see the ghosts of her deceased sisters. During an annual feast at their castle, Highmoor Manor, her sisters Rosalie and Ligeia go missing; the third triplet, Lenore, is frantic. The other sisters find Rosalie’s and Ligeia’s corpses frozen in the yard. Fisher says he searched the yard but didn’t find them, and Annaleigh notices three sets of footprints in the snow. With Cassius’s help, Annaleigh figures out the otherworldly dances are illusions; in reality, the sisters are dancing in their rooms. Soon after, the lighthouse burns out. With Fisher missing, Annaleigh and Cassius set out to the lighthouse to relight it. While the pair are successful, Cassius’s aunt Kosamaras, the Harbinger of Madness and Nightmares, suddenly reveals herself—which, in turn, reveals Cassius as a demigod. Kosamaras killed the real Fisher and is currently using his body, and she is responsible for the sisters’ illusions—however, she won’t reveal who summoned her. Annaleigh hurries home, begging her family to help, but they’re trapped in another illusion. At a pregnant Morella’s command, the family reluctantly allows Annaleigh to help with her labor.

During Morella’s labor, the family pieces together the truth—that she used the Trickster god of bargains, Viscardi, to summon Kosamaras and become Ortun’s wife. Morella killed Eulalie since she remembered her as one of her mother Cecilia’s midwives years ago—the midwife who poisoned her. She delivers a stillborn son and a living dragon son, who is claimed by Viscardi. She offers her life to end their bargain, ending Kosamaras’s illusions and returning everyone’s rationale. Suddenly, the castle catches fire. After it burns down, presumably killing their father and stillborn half-brother in the process, the remaining six sisters begin a new life. Annaleigh becomes the new lighthouse keeper with her demigod love Cassius, Camille becomes the Duchess of the Salann Islands, and the other sisters live in peace at last.