I've been wanting to read this book for quite some time, and I almost bought it immediately after it came out. But early reviews started to pour in and most of them were either pretty "meh" or kind of negative. So my enthusiasm kind of died down a little, but eventually I got my hands on a library copy and was determined to read it anyway. Because a sea witch than predicts her own murder? Yes, that sounds pretty interesting to me. First off, I really liked the amount of thought the author put into writing about the whaling industry and sailing in general. I know next to nothing about either, so those parts of the book were fascinating. It's things like that that remind me of why I love historical fiction. 
 Avery has a problem. She was being raised when she was younger to become "the witch". The witch is responsible for keeping the people of Prince Island safe from harm by selling them charms and things of that nature that prevent harm to coming to any of the sailors during their long voyages. That's not the only thing they do; there's a wide range of items that can do a variety of things, but keeping people safe is the main issue. Avery was really excited about taking her grandmother's place as the witch when she was old enough, but before that could happen she was whisked away by her mother, taken to the other side of the Island to live a normal life away from magic of any kind. Her mother believes that Avery has no business continuing their family tradition, and Avery hates it. She spends the majority of the book plotting to get away from her mother, determined to become the witch no matter what anyone says. She becomes increasingly desperate as time passes, because her grandmother is getting old and when she dies -if there is no one to take her place - all the magical items will lose their power and everyone will be unprotected. Avery cannot be completely away from magic because she has the ability to interpret the meaning of dreams, but that's the only thing she's able to do. 
 Salt & Storm is probably not a book for everyone, mainly because it's pretty slow-paced and character driven. It lingers on the details of the Island, for example, and spends a ton of pages with just Avery's internal monologue. Normally this kind of thing would bother me, but I enjoyed the setting and was interested enough in knowing whether or not she would ever become the witch or be murdered like her dream predicted. Avery herself is not a very remarkable heroine, but she is pretty determined and I have to give her credit for that. I wasn't sure I agreed with her ambitions though; one thing that is made clear throughout this entire book is that becoming the witch involves a lot of pain. And a lot of sacrifice. I emphasized a lot with Avery's mother, who was made out to be the villain. She was only trying to keep her child from a fate that honestly sounded pretty horrible. Being able to use magic and create spells sounds cool, but sometimes the price is just too high, and in this case that seemed to be true. 
 The romance honestly seemed to come out of nowhere. One minute Avery disliked the boy helping her - Tane - and the next they were declaring their love. It wasn't quite insta-love, because they actually did spend a lot of time together beforehand, but to the reader it feels very abrupt. I was really surprised the first time they kissed. Because of this, I wasn't as attached to them as a couple as I wanted to be, but I did enjoy their interactions after they got together. Despite the slow-pace I mentioned earlier, Salt & Storm has a really nice sense of foreboding with the threat of murder hanging over Avery's head the whole time. And the climax of the story really delivered nicely. The author did something that kind of surprised me, and I love risks like that. I would recommend checking out this book if it sounds interesting to you, because overall it's actually a really lovely book. 
 (view spoiler)[I was surprised when Tane actually died. I figured something miraculous would happen and Avery would somehow be able to change fate even though no one else has ever been able to. But in fact, she wasn't, and I was impressed at how the author went through with the whole book's promise. I actually thought it was unfair that Avery got to leave the island and have a life when her mother was stuck on Prince Island. Her mother really got the short end of the stick here. (hide spoiler)] 
 4 stars