Violet by Scott Thomas Book Review

This is a spooky slow burn.

Violet by Scott Thomas

Released September 2019

Dark Fiction  |  Goodreads  |  Amazon 

Source: Received for Review Consideration

In the lineage of Peter Straub's Julia, Scott Thomas’ Violet is the disturbing tale of a woman haunted by her long-abandoned imaginary friend.

For many children, the summer of 1988 was filled with sunshine and laughter. But for ten-year-old Kris Barlow, it was her chance to say goodbye to her dying mother.

Three decades later, loss returns—her husband killed in a car accident. And so, Kris goes home to the place where she first knew pain—to that summer house overlooking the crystal waters of Lost Lake. It’s there that Kris and her eight-year-old daughter will make a stand against grief.

But a shadow has fallen over the quiet lake town of Pacington, Kansas. Beneath its surface, an evil has grown—and inside that home where Kris Barlow last saw her mother, an old friend awaits her return. 

My 2 Cents For Free!

Violet is a great follow up to Kill Creek but it is a very different book and I think that is a beautiful thing. Kill Creek featured many characters creating all sorts of chaos and mayhem while Violet is much more of an intimate read about grief, trauma and the danger of burying memories so far inside that they begin to leak out in the most dangerous of ways.

You’re going to have to be in a certain frame of mind to read this one. It is a slow burning, atmospheric read, very detailed, character oriented read and it takes its own sweet time building up the scenes and the characters and slowly revealing all of its secrets. This worked well for me because I had some time on my hands and I was ready for some creeping dread and Violet delivers.

After a life-altering, trauma causing event, Kris returns to her childhood lake house hoping to help her daughter heal emotionally and find her way back to being a happy child again. Kris has only fond memories of the summer home that helped her family through her mother’s losing bout with cancer. But memories are tricky things . . . The house in serious disarray when they arrive because it has been left to rot. There’s a reason for this, of course, but I am not going to tell you what it is. Kris begins to restore things to their previous glory, keeping herself and her daughter busy, but as she starts chatting up the locals, she soon learns that something very unsettling has been happening in the idyllic town and she realizes that bringing her daughter here wasn’t such a great idea.

“The house looked like a crumbling headstone on a forgotten grave.”

If I had one word to describe this story it would have to be unnervingly-heartbreaking. Okay that’s two words connected by a dash but it’s my review and I will always do what I want, haha. Eerie moments fill this book and create a sense of unease that builds and builds until you just might be seeing dark things in the corner of your room, under your bed or in the closet. Seriously, read this with all the lights on because it creeped me out in a way that most things don’t. I think it was because of the slow, slow build and the tiny terrible moments that kept occurring in-between the daily grind of refinishing a home. It gets under your skin after a while.

If you’re in the mood for a character driven, spooky story and have some hours free, give it a go. It has a little mystery, a lot of emotion, characters that feel like real people and some very haunting imagery.

Content Warning behind the spoiler tag:

CW: Be warned there are some very terrible, gut-wrenching things that happen here. Both to children and an animal. I was pre-warned before going in and I am THANKFUL for that because I would not want to stumble on that stuff unawares

4 1/2 out of 5