Review: “Blood and Salt” by Kim Liggett While the horror elements aren't very scary, the characters and the magic are engaging

Ash Larkin is haunted by the image of a dead girl who looks very much like her. She and her twin brother Rhys are children of a single mother who escaped a very possibly made up cult.  At least that’s what the kids think. The Quivira, an invisible tribe of people living in a corn field in middle of nowhere Kansas, always seemed like something one would want to escape.  But when Ash and Rhys’ mom vanishes from their New York home, they realize the only way to get her back is to travel to Kansas and find the Quivira on their own.

The Larkin kids discover that not only are the Quivira are real, they are also magic users, stuck in an existence that never got past the late 1800’s.  The Quivira are lost in time, held captive by an immortal looking to resurrect her one true love.  Or are they?

Blood and Salt is a face paced, young adult novel by Kim Liggett.  It combines magic, horror, and love story akin to Romeo and Juliet.

I’m a huge fan of young adult books because they are easy to read, easy to get caught up in, are usually fast-paced and have relatable characters. Blood and Salt is no exception.

At its heart, Blood and Salt is a love story.  The driving force of several of the characters is finding one’s true match, that one person who makes your blood hum and your skin tingle.  And for the main character, Ash, it’s all based on smell.  She finds out through the course of the novel that all the women in her line have a heightened sense of smell, which explains why she was never able to date anyone in the mundane world of New York City, and had to go to the middle of a Kansas corn field to find true love.  She also learns the hard lessons of betrayal and revenge, something that love brings out in a lot of people where love is involved.

Kim Liggett’s use of description really takes you the middle-of-nowhere Kansas, someplace I’ve never been but feel like I had been after reading this book.  I felt I’d been transported back to 1850, with no electricity and home churned butter, high collared dresses and summer ice cream socials.

I enjoyed the way the plot unfolded and there were several moments which, even though I pride myself on suspending my disbelief, managed to surprise me.

As a horror novel, I found this very unscary, in fact it didn’t even have much of a creep factor at all, but I grew up reading the master of horror, Stephen King, so finding something that would scare me, or creep me out would be exceptionally hard.

Over all, if you like YA fiction, and specifically YA fiction that focuses on any kind of magic or supernatural goings on, I would definitely recommend this one to add to your collection.

“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.

Blood and Salt by Kim Liggett
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: G. P. Putnam’s Sons (September 22, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399166483
ISBN-13: 978-0399166488