ARC Review: Blood and Salt by Kim Liggett

Blood and Salt by Kim Liggett
ARC via Andye @ ReadingTeen
A m a z o n   //   G o o d r e a d s
Published: September 22, 2015

What Blood and Salt is all about:
Romeo and Juliet meets Children of the Corn in this one-of-a-kind romantic horror.

“When you fall in love, you will carve out your heart and throw it into the deepest ocean. You will be all in—blood and salt.”

These are the last words Ash Larkin hears before her mother returns to the spiritual commune she escaped long ago. But when Ash follows her to Quivira, Kansas, something sinister and ancient waits among the rustling cornstalks of this village lost to time.

Ash is plagued by memories of her ancestor, Katia, which harken back to the town’s history of unrequited love and murder, alchemy and immortality. Charming traditions soon give way to a string of gruesome deaths, and Ash feels drawn to Dane, a forbidden boy with secrets of his own.

As the community prepares for a ceremony five hundred years in the making, Ash must fight not only to save her mother, but herself—and discover the truth about Quivira before it’s too late. Before she’s all in—blood and salt.

First Sentence: The dead girl hung upside down over our kitchen table. (ARC)

As bloody as it is spell-binding (literally), as romantic as it is horrifying, Kim Liggett’s debut novel, BLOOD AND SALT, sinks it’s claws under your skin and doesn’t let you go until you heart is completely torn from your chest and thrown into the deepest ocean. Liggett’s writing doesn’t let you go until you are all in. Blood and salt. (and yes, I totally just used a book reference.) Gorgeous and tragic. Dark and riddled with a kind of romantic doom, this modern take on Romeo and Juliet combined with Children of the Corn is utterly delightful. In an earlier review of a different book, I complained because the creepy factor was too low. This one was what I was looking for. It was perfect. An old curse, madwomen and a field a corn. Dead girls hanging in sight of one girl, darkness and light, gruesome deaths, a cult set on becoming immortal, and a magic so dark the devil would be envious.

I tried to focus on his retreating footsteps, but all I could hear was the corn rattling, like it was whispering my name. (ARC)

Ash’s mother was born in Quivira, and Ash is a conduit. The only one in her family’s line. Her fate is entwined with Katia’s, the woman who plagued the Quivira community with the curse of sacrificing their bodies to act as vessels for Katia and her one great love. When Ash’s mother abandons Ash and her brother to go to Katia to act as her vessel, visions more powerful than anything that have been thrust upon her before consume her thoughts. She and her brother find themselves in a cornfield. In that field is Quivira and all the sinister alchemy, forbidden love, and murders that the town accepts. In this town Ash meets Dane.

When you fall in love, you will carve out your heart and throw it into the deepest ocean. You will be all in- blood and salt. (ARC)

Ash and Dane are quickly all in. But their love is also forbidden. So very forbidden. Potentially resulting in Dane’s own murder by the people of Quivira, who are desperate to have their taste of the life where dying is but a myth. Of course, what would this book be if Dane was hiding a secret, a secrets only he knows? But he still loves, and he does, indeed, throw his heart into the deepest ocean. God, the romance in this book is flipping fantastic. The writing is stunning and I just wish I could write like that. The plot: the plot, y’all.  Hells-to-the-freaking-yes. A thousand times yes. *shivers the best kind of shiver* Lordy, I love creepy stuff with cults and murder and dead people and things that are exactly what they seem and ALCHEMY. I love it. I love romances so dark and deep and heavy and bloody that they refuse to believe in it ending. The kind that makes the idea of immortality, however it be obtained, taste a little sweeter. The kind that drips down your chin like honey.

There was nothing innocent about the kiss; it was dark and deep, something I wanted to dive into and never return from. (ARC)

Okay. Basically, what I’m attempting to get across it that thIS BOOK IS CREEPY AND ROMANTIC AND CORN-FILLED AND I LOVE IT. Very much. And you should totally pre-order and read it. There’s another quote I love but it’s at the end of the book and very spoiler-y. So none of y’all get to see it. Guess you’ll just have to order it. *winks*

Tell me your secrets. Or just tell me you like the creepy, bloody stuff as much as I do. Or tell me you don't. If you don't--I recommend this book.