There’s a reason why mother told us not to talk to strangers…
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…
I absolutely devoured Violet.
It’s very different to Holliday’s previous book “The Lingering”- fewer jump shocks, more a constant and growing sense of unease. I knew from page1 that the friendship between Violet and Carrie would go wrong, but waiting, as the plot deliberately but inexorably unrolled, to uncover who how when and what was going to tip the story over into violence was a hugely enjoyable ride.
And slowly realising that each of the two women has dark secrets – despite an early sense that one of them is more unstable than the other was another unsettling twist that left me second guessing myself right up to the end.
I literally didn’t put it down til I’d finished it.
I’ve read some flashier high concept thrillers lately that lost me at the end cos they suspended disbelief just too far but this one was scarily true to life right up to that punch line. And therefore more disturbing and longer lasting
I’m calling it “Deliciously Decadently Dark,” and “Like ‘The Beach’ meets ‘Single White Female’.” It’s Fantastic, moody, dark, subtle, and I highly recommend you grab it fast!
