The Salt Grows Heavy (2023)

Khaw strips all sugary romance from the mermaid mythos, giving us a sharp-toothed apex predator who has burned her royal captor's kingdom to ash. Travelling alongside an immortal plague doctor through freezing woods, our narrator perceives the land through brine-slick senses, predatory hunger and ancient instincts. Her teeth and sinew are never softened to satisfy human decorum. Khaw's lush, visceral prose grounds every gesture in the heavy anatomy of a sea beast surviving awkwardly on frozen soil, making her inner monologue astonishingly distinct.