★已授權英、美，2國語文

A gorgeous and creepy fusion of folk horror with biblical lore.

Jesuit priest Avelyn Brocken was born into a mining family in Hreodwater, a small, isolated salt town in England. At 16, after a mining disaster killed his family, he fled.

When a fellow priest is miraculously healed only to then be turned to salt after a visit to Hreodwater, Avelyn is sent to investigate. When he arrives, the town’s doctor, Jericho, tells him that the priest is not the only one experiencing strange cures—and may not be the only one in danger from a substance in the mine that the locals call “salt light.”

As Avelyn and Jericho team up to protect the Hreodwater from salt light, strange happenings occur at mines around the world. At an archaeological dig on the Dead Sea, electrical devices froth salt, while at a huge salt works in Poland, communication is lost, and rumors circulate of total annihilation.

As salt light devastates cities around the world, Avelyn must decide what to believe—and whether his faith is strong enough to withstand an apocalypse.

 

Natasha Pulley is an international bestselling author. Her debut, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, was a Sunday Times bestseller, won a Betty Trask Award, and was shortlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award. Her second novel, The Bedlam Stacks, was shortlisted for the Encore Award and longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize. The Lost Future of Pepperharrow (2020) received widespread acclaim, establishing her reputation for originality. She went on to publish The Kingdoms (2021), The Half Life of Valery K (2022), shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, and The Mars House (2024). Natasha has lived in Japan as a Daiwa Scholar, as well as China and Peru. She was a 2016 Gladstone Writer in Residence, and she teaches on Bath Spa University’s Creative Writing BA and MA, alongside short courses at the Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education. She lives in Bristol.