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The Salt King
An end of the world thriller, packed with dazzling wit and romance
Brief Description
Avelyn Brocken is a Jesuit at the Vatican. Originally from the salt mining town of Hreodwater in East Anglia, his only ambition is never to go back. But when rumours of miracles being performed there are followed by a bizarre video showing that someone trying to...
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August 2026
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The Salt King
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Incredible, impossible, miracles are being performed in the tiny cult of Hreadwater, and Jesuit priest Avelyn Bracken is despatched to investigate, in this compelling, sinister and brilliant novel from the Sunday Times-bestselling author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street.
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Description
Avelyn Brocken is a Jesuit at the Vatican. Originally from the salt mining town of Hreodwater in East Anglia, his only ambition is never to go back. But when rumours of miracles being performed there are followed by a bizarre video showing that someone trying to leave the enclave has been turned to salt, the Vatican foreign ministry summons him.
The isolated Hreodwater salt mine has its own culture, its own language, and its own faith — the worship of the Salt King, the sleeping god of the mine. Any investigation into their miracles requires someone who understands all three. Avelyn must go.
Returning to Hreodwater, with its unique salt light and ability to destroy anything electronic within minutes, is personally challenging for Avelyn, who escaped the cult — and the Salt King — as a child. But eruptions of salt are happening all over the world. People are being turned into salt statues without warning, and their frequency is increasing. If these are miracles, the church must do something. And if they are not — if the ancient, and frightening, Salt King is returning — then Avelyn may be the only one who has a chance of stopping it...
The Salt King is a gorgeous and creepy fusion of folk horror with biblical lore from the genre-disrupting author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street and The Mars House.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781399632973
Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 20 August 2026
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Gollancz
Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Width: 153.0mm
Height: 234.0mm
Weight: 0g
Pages: 432
About the Author
NATASHA PULLEY is the internationally bestselling author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street. She has won a Betty Trask Award, been shortlisted for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award, the Royal Society of Literature's Encore Award, and the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, and been longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize.
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