Violet by SJI Holliday

I'm delighted to be today's stop on the blog tour (which happily doesn't involve travelling on a train!) for Violet by SJI (Susi) Holliday. My thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for inviting me to get involved and to Orenda for my review copy.

The 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 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…

Violet was published by Orenda Books as an eBook on 14th September 2019 and on 14th November 2019 in paperback. You can purchase it from the publisher, Waterstones, Amazon UK and Amazon US.


My Review:

I am not much of a traveller, but now I seriously have the fear about it after reading this! I am never talking to anyone when I'm travelling ever again! Headphones and a book for me  from now on.

Violet is travelling on her own in Beijing, having been dumped by her boyfriend. And half her luggage has gone missing. She is desperate to get a ticket for the Trans-Siberian Express to Moscow, but is told that all the tickets have gone. Retiring to the bar to drown her sorrows she meets Carrie who is also travelling alone after her best pal had an accident. Carrie has her pal's ticket for the train which she can't be refunded for but she can transfer. After the two girls get drunk and have fun together, Carrie offers Violet her spare ticket, making no mention of payment. And thus their journey, and ours, begins.

It's hard to talk too much about the story itself without spoilers. But it gets harder to trust either girl as the journey progresses and their memories of events that take place are fractured and hazy. Violet is an unreliable narrator but it's mainly her voice we hear. She is desperate for a new friend, a really good new friend, and wants to impress Carrie. However, her behaviour isn't always appropriate and is frequently erratic. But Carrie's occasional emails to her best friend and family members are very telling. She is clearly not all she seems either.

Susi Holliday has created two great characters here and she teases us by revealing them very slowly. Initially we only know what each girl tells us about herself, and we don't always know what of that is true, but as the story unfolds we learn more about them bit by bit and can form our own opinions. Although mine changed frequently as the tale twisted and turned.

The setting on the train is claustrophobic and stifling, and certainly adds to the dangerous environment. As I mentioned earlier I'm not particularly well travelled, so I loved visiting the places in the book. They are so beautifully described, very evocative. I got really cross with Violet and Carrie for not making the most of them!

This was my first book by Susi Holliday but I look forward to reading more. I read Violet in two days. It is a detailed, intimate look at an obsessive and toxic relationship between two unreliable, possibly dangerous people and the damage done to them and those around them. The characters, whilst not particularly likeable, are really well crafted and the locations are so brilliantly described I could have been there. I really enjoyed it but will look at train journeys differently now!


The Author:

SJI (Susi) Holliday is a scientist, writing coach and the bestselling author of five crime novels, including the Banktoun Trilogy (Black Wood, Willow Walk and The Damselfly), the festive chiller The Deaths of December and her creepy Gothic psychological thriller The Lingering. Her short story ‘Home From Home’ was published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and shortlisted for the CWA Margery Allingham Prize.

Encapsulating her love of travel and  claustrophobic settings, her latest novel, Violet, explores toxic friendships and the perils of talking to strangers, as well as drawing on her own journey on the Trans-Siberian  Express over 10  years ago.  All of her novels have been UK ebook number-one bestsellers. Susi was born and raised  in  Scotland and now divides her time between Edinburgh, London and as many other exciting places that she can fit in.