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?
I want to point out before I even begin the review that I fell in love with this book just because of the cover. I think the font, the image and the colours are so haunting and gothic and actually suit the tone of the book so well and I was so happy when I got it in the post. They say don't judge a book by it's cover, but this is one book where the cover totally reflects the book.
I was very taken aback when I started this just because I hadn't been aware that it was based in Victorian London, I thought it was modern paranormal fiction and so that surprised me a little bit so I'm just warning you guys about that. The writing is usually done very well and for the most part I was convinced that the book was set in the late 1800s but at some point that slipped and some of the phrasing seemed very modern which put me off at some points.
I loved the story, it's a historical paranormal mystery with a hint of romance and it carried it all out very well. As said above, the historical part was mostly very well executed, the paranormal part was awesome to read and worked very well and the mystery really did have me guessing at every turn. I loved the romance, Colin was so sweet and caring in a sort of rough and ragged way and I was swooning, I don't know about Violet though, I didn't really like her that much, I felt as though she made some bad decisions and always needed to be saved, I like my heroines to be kick-ass and Violet was a bit weak for me. What I did like about Violet was that she wasn't the typical Victorian heroine, she was in society but not for a good reason and her emotions came through strong, which I give kudos to Harvey for.
My favorite character (apart from Colin) would be Elizabeth, who provides some comic relief when the story gets pretty serious as well as helping the story along at points where it seemed to drag. She's the bouncy, fun, rebellious girl that every historical book has to have.
All in all, I loved Haunting Violet though I found a few flaws in the main character and the narration.
Overall rating: B+
Stand alone/series: Stand alone (I think)
UK Paperback Release: July 4th 2011
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Pages: 352
Book obtained via: Sent by Bloomsbury
Good review, I just read this and really enjoyed it as well!
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