Blog Tour: Violet by SJI Holliday

Released: 14th September 2019

Publisher: Orenda

Genre: Psychological fiction

Blurb:

Carrie's best friend has an accident and can no longer make the round-the-world trip they'd planned together, so Carrie decides to go it alone. Violet is also travelling alone, after splitting up with her boyfriend in Thailand. She is also desperate for a ticket on the Trans-Siberian Express, but there is nothing available. When the two women meet in a Beijing Hotel, Carrie makes the impulsive decision to invite Violet to take her best friend's place. Thrown together in a strange country, and the cramped cabin of the train, the women soon form a bond. But as the journey continues, through Mongolia and into Russia, things start to unravel – because one of these women is not who she claims to be… A tense and twisted psychological thriller about obsession, manipulation and toxic friendships, Violet also reminds us that there's a reason why mother told us not to talk to strangers... ‘A sumptuously dark psychological thriller with echoes of Patricia Highsmith at her finest, and for fans of Killing Eve’ Michael Wood ‘Violet is bristling with clever twists – nobody writes scary people quite as brilliantly as Holliday’ Elizabeth Haynes ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about Violet after I finished it. Brilliantly atmospheric and exquisitely paced’ Cass Green

My Thoughts:

I absolutely adored this novel. I was lucky to receive a copy from Orenda so I could be part of the blog tour, and I was so excited by the premise that I began it on the day it arrived.

I haven't read a thriller set within this kind of atmosphere before, but the traveling premise set an unusual and wonderfully exotic tone.

Violet and Carrie are both traveling alone unexpectedly, and the author sets the scene straight from the start to make you imagine yourself there with them. I was whisked along on the train and thoroughly enjoyed the ride.

There were plenty of twists along the way, leaving me needing 'just one more chapter' before I put it down (which needless to say, I didn't really) I sped through it, wanting to be a bystander within this toxic friendship and find out where it would lead.

As it's only around 230 pages, I can't say much more about the plot without giving spoilers but, trust me that this novel is one that you won't regret taking a chance on. It's incredibly well written and vivid with the settings and places you're transported to. I'm excited that I now have a new author to follow and yet another amazing title from this publisher.

This book will no doubt be on my shortlist for my books of the year. Thanks so much to SJI Holliday and Orenda Books for sending me a copy for review. As always, thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the blog tour and introducing me to such an enthralling book.