Our Cut of Salt

Happy book birthday to Our Cut of Salt by Deena Helm. This has been one of my most anticipated debuts of 2026, and it is as moving as I’d hoped.

In 2002, Marina is preparing to travel to her late grandmother’s childhood home in Haifa, Palestine. Though reluctant at first, her mom, Haifa (named for the city), also makes the journey. There, both women must reckon with all the secrets and traumas Nuhad buried in Palestine in 1948. With the help of Nuhad’s friend Rania, they face the house’s haunting, as painful and harrowing as it proves to be.

What I Liked:

• Palestinian history and ongoing strife. Though this is mainly set in 2002, and so doesn’t dive into the most recent ongoing genocide, Our Cut of Salt does offer a multi-generational view of the horrors Palestinians have faced since 1948. From the violent displacement and needless murders to the ripple effects extending for the next 54 years and beyond, this novel blends history and horror with a family saga. It’s informative but, moreover, filled with emotion and care for the characters. It gives voice to Palestinians still in Palestine and those in the wider diaspora.
• The house as a character. There’s a repeated refrain in the first chapter of “Why is the house in Haifa haunted?” Bit by bit, the answers to that question arise. We also get to see the haunted house become its own thinking, feeling entity, craving its real family to come back within its walls. The house outright rejects anyone else who dares enter, both by haunting and killing intruders. It only wants Nuhad’s family, and won’t rest until past wrongs are righted.
• Three generations of women and how their traumas interconnect. There’s a lot of hardship and intergenerational trauma in Our Cut of Salt. Nuhad and her family (plus her friend Rania) faced the worst of it in 1948, but those effects trickled down to her daughter Haifa, and in turn to her granddaughter Marina. With Nuhad now gone, it’s up to the younger women to reconcile with the secrets and pain buried in the past and to carve a new path forward.

What Didn’t Work for Me:

• It’s a bit saccharine by the end. This haunting novel has a dramatic scene at its climax, and while it’s more hopeful than I expected, I appreciate the way it gives our characters peace. And like the women in this book, I hope Palestinians may see their own freedom restored soon, too.

Audiobook:

Victoria Nassif does a lovely job of narrating Our Cut of Salt. She seamlessly moves between each of the different characters and times, and I enjoyed her pronunciation of Arabic names and words. This is a gentle and engrossing audiobook.

Final Thoughts

Our Cut of Salt is a beautifully written novel that draws a haunting from the very real horrors Palestinians have faced for decades. It’s also a multigenerational work of resilience and reconnection, leaving readers with hope for a better future. This was a powerful debut, and I look forward to reading more from Deena Helm. Free Palestine.

Special thanks to Tor Publishing, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Get the Book

You can buy Our Cut of Salt here – it’s available as a hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

Our Cut of Salt by Deena Helm
Audiobook Narrator	Victoria Nassif
Audience	Adult
Genre	Horror; Literary Fiction
Setting	Palestine
Number of Pages	288
Format I Read	Audiobook & Ebook (NetGalley ARCs)
Original Publication Date	September 22, 2026
Publisher	Tor Nightfire

Official Summary

In this lyrical debut, three generations of Palestinian women must put the haunting of their ancestral home to rest, before the secrets of the past drown them all. Our Cut of Salt is a powerful and intimate look at what it means to make a home, to lose it, and to return, only to find it irrevocably changed.

“A one-of-a-kind haunted house.” —Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author

There is something haunting Nuhad’s childhood home in Haifa. Cats avoid its perimeter, strange noises come from within, and residents have mysteriously vanished without a trace. Although Nuhad has not returned to her home since the Nakba in 1948, she always held a place for the house in her heart.

And, in return, the house did the same for her.

After Nuhad passes away, her granddaughter, Marina, is determined to visit her grandmother’s home after a lifetime of being kept in the dark about her culture and family history. Marina’s mother, Haifa – named for the city that was lost to their family – reluctantly agrees to her trip, though she knows firsthand that some secrets are better left buried.

But the house is no longer a home. It is a painful, festering wound that infects everything it touches. The more Marina digs into her family’s past, the sicker she becomes. Despite Nuhad’s ghostly warnings, Haifa rushes to help her daughter.

As the three women converge in their ancestral home, they must put the haunting to rest before the secrets of the past drown them all.