Deceitful and tricky, but very inventive, the ruses made me give the beautiful but grasping Mrs. Willoughby was communicating with their loved ones were my favourite parts of the early chapters of the novel. Violet’s descriptions of how they created the atmosphere and special effects to convince their customers that Mrs.
Young Violet Willoughby’s mother is a “Spiritualist Medium”, and enlists her reluctant daughter and an orphan boy from Ireland named Colin to assist her in the theatre that was her “sittings”. It is a world full of rules and rigid roles, but one where a fascination with the supernatural is common. The ghosts are genuinely creepy, the leading men are deliciously swoonworthy, and the ending is appropriately happy, making this a perfect accompaniment to a stormy night and a nice spot of tea.In her young adult novel, Haunting Violet, Alyxandra Harvey takes us on a journey to Britain in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Admittedly, there is a sly bit of irreverence to Violet's tone, especially as she negotiates the perils of breath-stealing corsets and snooty lords and ladies, but overall, the narrative stays true to the dramatics of the genre. Harvey brings together with aplomb all the quintessential elements of a classic Victorian gothic: the beautiful but fortuneless heroine looking for a better life, the rambling estate with too many secrets, the suspicious-looking death of yet another beautiful girl, and, finally, the promise of a sultry and forbidden romance.
The shade, Rowena Wentworth, is as insistent in death as she was in life as an earl's daughter, and she's putting poor Violet in a difficult situation not only does Rowena plan to name her murderer, which will no doubt mean aspersions cast on someone very wealthy and powerful, but her presence is also opening up Violet's psychic sensitivity to spirits that are far more nasty than a spoiled rich girl. While the spirit world may remain closed to her hack of a mother, it suddenly makes itself known to Violet when the apparition of a drowned girl pays her a visit and then proceeds to flood Violet's bedroom with phantom water and lilies. Now her mother's services are requested at the luxurious estate of Lord Jasper, and Violet, along with her mother's handsome assistant, Colin, is forced to accompany her once more as she swindles the wealthy elite of Victorian London. The daughter of a famous medium, Violet stopped believing in ghosts a long time ago-easy to do when you're the one making the eerie tapping noises or pumping the bellows for a ghostly breeze during your charlatan mother's renowned séances.
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