Review: Haunting Violet by Alyxandra Harvey

I bet this won't make sense in the morning.

Violet Willoughby doesn't believe in ghosts. But they believe in her. After spending years participating in her mother's elaborate ruse as a fraudulent medium, Violet is about as skeptical as they come in all matters supernatural. Now that she is being visited by a very persistent ghost, one who suffered a violent death, Violet can no longer ignore her unique ability. She must figure out what this ghost is trying to communicate, and quickly because the killer is still on the loose. Afraid of ruining her chance to escape her mother's scheming through an advantageous marriage, Violet must keep her ability secret. The only person who can help her is Colin, a friend she's known since childhood, and whom she has grown to love. He understands the true Violet, but helping her on this path means they might never be together. Can Violet find a way to help this ghost without ruining her own chance at a future free of lies? (From Goodreads.com. Obviously.)

There is a long standing agreement between summer and I; it bleats on out outside and makes merry with the cows and the flowers while I keep my distance inside and read books about dead people. Why is this, you ask without much curiosity? Well, I reply glumly, I’ve witnessed summer making merry before, and the nightmares will likely never go away. So, I read books about dead people. Haunting Violet was one of the more promising specimens that I took under my metaphorical wing for the summer, and it certainly didn’t disappoint. I’d like to think it was a little more grateful about being saved from having a front row seat for the summertime merry-making, but alas, it simply picked my pocket and put laudanum in my tea.


Drugged up and minus a wallet, the first thing you need to know about Haunting Violet is that the interactions between the characters are absolutely fantastic. Snarky, smart-ass comments reigned supreme among the lively, bouncy banter between the lively, bouncy-characters. Every conversation, every squabble, every time the characters interacted, whether they were fighting or kissing, haunting or just talking, it always felt fresh and realistic, romantic, funny … anything that it needed to be, it was. I’ve noticed that fabulous dialogue (and by fabulous I mean the ‘men in sparkly tights making self-depreciating jokes about their sparkly tights’ variety. Simply because that is the best type of fabulous there is, not that there are any men in glittering tights in this novel. Unfortunately.) seems to be a recurring feature in Alyxandra Harvey’s novels - seriously, even if she were to write a book about the mating habits of the aubergine, I would inevitably fall in love with it because the interaction between the characters because despite the subject matters, they would still manage to have a witty conversation commenting on some important issue.


The witty character interactions, however, did not encompass the romance, and in turn the romance kept to itself. The romance was nice, but the romance was always there. Wherever you happened to be, the romance would be lurking in the shadows nearby. The romance is the one that put the laudanum in my tea. One day I will grab the romance by the scruff of its neck and force a hammer down its throat, because that’s what every sound louder than a whisper felt like after I drank that cup of tea. Despite its nasty habits, the romance was very cute and satisfying. But one can’t help but feel that the romance, while ever present, did appear to come out of nowhere. It lacked any kind of build up; one minute Violet hates Colin and Xavier seems to have a chance, and then suddenly Colin and Violet happen to be making out, and suddenly, true love! Pre-spontaneous smooching, Xavier is a lovely guy, post-spontaneous smooching, Xavier is really dull, but at least he’s got money. Even the hopeless romantic in me, the one whom I keep locked up for eleven months a year, doesn’t understand this.


Of course, for characters to have witty, intriguing conversations, they do have to be witty and intriguing themselves. Although wit and intrigue is not necessarily needed to have a witty conversations, as one can be possessed or influenced by strong liquor brewed by fairies, both of which are apparently readily available to the characters. However, they succeed at being witty or intriguing without the aid of the supernatural and their surprisingly strong alcohol. They were the bones of the story, which without them would just be another ghost story mystery typed things with men in tight trousers that are disappointingly lacking in sparkles. Violet was a fantastic heroine, resourceful and smart, sarcastic and independent. Plenty of backbone in her judgements, and while she wasn’t entirely relatable (as much as I would want to be stalked by ghosts and have several handsome men vying for my hand, reality and my therapist tell me that those aren’t likely to happen anytime soon.), she was still a fun person to follow around. Her selection of friends was great too; Elizabeth was a riot. Silly, witty and likeable, she was possibly the manliest character in this series, in terms of courage and such. Plenty of personality, a bit too much to fit into her corset. Violet’s choice in men, however, was rather questionable in comparison. Colin was much less fleshed out; often he felt flat and inconsistent, sometimes he felt like an idealised stereotype conjured for the sole purpose of making out with Violet. Although he was tolerable for the most part, he was frustratingly flat.


There were other characters who were important, such as Violet’s parents (whom I wish dead, so they shall not be mentioned.) and Tabitha, Rowena and Caroline (yes, lovely. Tragic.) and a bunch of stock males/patrons of the nearest of liquor store who aren’t particularly important and Frederic/Peter did not occur like I wished it to, so I refuse to acknowledge them, and there are other important things that need to be brought to light. Such as the mystery, whom didn’t seem to be able to make up its mind whether it wanted to wear a corset and sip tea and make polite conversation with Violet, or if wanted to throw empty plant pots at her because she was so inept at solving mysteries. As for the mystery itself, there were some great twists (oh, so Mr Travis didn’t accidently murder Rowena? So it really was _______?), as well as a few rather mediocre ones (Mr Travis is the lover, now, who saw that one coming?). Haunting Violet provided an interesting mystery, incorporating ghost in a unique fashion and … other important stuff that makes thing good. The ghosts, while not particularly unique or ambitious in their presentation, they did make for brilliant characters. Rowena, the melancholy ghost who preferred her water torture methods to small talk, the lecherous ghost who wandered the graveyard on the scrounge for a kiss, or that irritating little dog whom Violet adored.


Now, before I go and round up the negative things I have to say and trap them in a gloomy atmosphere, I have to run the last lap around the isle of positive things about this book. One of the best things about this book was Violet’s narrative. I’ve noticed lately that some first person narratives don’t always connect with the character that’s supposed to be narrating it, and those results in having two entirely different characters; the one speaking and the one thinking. Sometimes it is done well, others it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Violet’s narrative, however, was one of the occasion in which this was done well, since she was essentially living two lives; the one that spoke was the spiritualist’s daughter, the polite one, and the thinking side did not have a beard, contrary to popular belief. The one that thought was the one who wanted to escape, the witty and the smart one. Anyhow, this all manifested in a very captivating, well written narrative that was all at the same time funny, dramatic, blah, blah, Violet sounded natural, blah, blah, good narrative, blah, blah.


Alright, now that all of that cheerful stuff is over and done with, I can finally get on with my very favourite pastime; bitching and moaning about the book with a smile that could gobble up the Philippines. Note: while I enjoy whining, that doesn’t mean that any of these things actually matter. I mean, me swallowing the Philippines might be a bit of a dilemma, but whatever. To get the primary things out of the way; Haunting Violet plot isn’t overly complicated, and you can see some of the plot twists coming three miles away, because they might as well be wearing giant yellow signs proclaiming “I AM A PLOT TWIST RELEVANT TO EVERY MYSTERY EVER.” Examples include: “Oh! How on earth could Rowena’s suspicious death possibly be a murder? What’s the likelihood of that, mmm, mmmm?” and “the stick up Caroline’s is not in fact that she may have murdered someone, no, it is forbidden love!” Please, gag me with a spoon.


Other than that, character introductions ranged from a ‘bit off’ to ‘wait, where did he come from?!’. Honestly, book, if you think that you can get away with “Oh, this person who has been talking for the last five minutes is Peter, he’s terribly grumpy for some reason and he drinks all of the time.” Or “this chap who has been overly polite towards me for the last two chapters is Xavier, and he fantastically handsome, also fantastically rich, but he’s also fantastically boring!” If you think you can get away with those kind of introductions, then you’ve never been subjected to the marmite punishment. (Note: Character introductions are, strangely enough, not from the actual book.)

Now that we’ve covered every inch of this book, every inch except those that are important, Haunting Violet proved to be a fun, interesting read, abundant with excellent banter and likeable characters. It shed an interesting view on spiritualism (or ‘let’s pretend we see dead people because very rich people are willing to give away their money to those that do because they are also very stupid’), and what people would do for money. I enjoyed it, and I recommend it. In fact, I recommend it to you. So, I say, go and buy Haunting Violet. You probably won’t regret it.

Thanks to Bloomsbury for sending me a copy to review.
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ .5