Or should she be trying to stop them? Are these glorious balls even real? Because if they aren’t, who - or what - are her sisters really dancing with? Meanwhile, her sisters are intent on leaving their lives of perpetual mourning behind and eager to start again. They’ve found what they believe to be the doorway of a god, and every night, they sneak out to attend glittering balls, dancing until dawn in silk gowns and slippers that wear out far too quickly.Īnnaleigh wishes she could be rid of these frightening visions and fears and join them in their forbidden trysts. One by one, Annaleigh’s four eldest sisters followed. Each death was more tragic than the last. A plague. A terrible fall. A drowning. A slip on the cliff edge.īut what if her sisters’ deaths weren’t the working of a curse or even mere accidents? What if they were murdered? What if the ghostly visions that have been haunting Annaleigh aren’t signs of madness, but the souls of her dead sisters unable to find rest? If that’s true, Annaleigh is determined to find the killer before they come to claim the next Thaumus sister.

It started with her mother’s death six years ago. Annaleigh Thaumas has lived a sheltered life at Highmoor, a manor by the sea, with her sisters, their father, and stepmother. She’s worn the black and gray of mourning so long she’s become accustomed to the stares, the whispers, the talk of accidents, of suicide, of a curse placed by the gods on the Thaumas sisters.

House of salt and sorrows book review