Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #418884 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 368 pages

Customer Reviews

Wonderful new series
I picked up 'Through Violet Eyes' randomly in a book store, read it, and was hooked. I've since gone on to buy the two sequals, 'With Red Hands' and 'In Golden Blood'.

The Natalie Lindstrom series combines strong characterisation, an internally consistent and well thought through alternate reality (Laurell K Hamilton, take note), and excellent plot. I bought the first book under the impression that it was a thriller, not entirely registering the strong supernatural component to all the books, and it worked well as a thriller, before developing into much much more.

The only warning I'd give is that my boyfriend has also read these books and is far less enthusiastic than me. He says he finds them somewhat preoccupied with a dull heroine, and gets bored by the romantic sub-plots. On the other hand, he still gives credit for the back story and plotting, which kept him going through all three books.

1st of 4 books
This is the first book in a series of thriller/paranormal stories about a violet called Natalie Lindstrom. Violets are a group of mediums who are prized by society for their abilities yet shunned and feared as freakish. Some are pressured to work for the government as conduits. Violets help dead people give evidence at there own murder trials, others to create new symphonies with world famous dead musician. Named violets because of there distinctive eye colour.
The plot of this book is someone is murdering the violets. Someone who knows enough not to give the victim a clue to help solve their own murder.
Natalie is our reluctant heroine, who along with a likeable if somewhat troubled FBI agent selected to protect her. Natalie is used as the conduit to speak to the murdered violets to try and stop the killer and discover who it may be.

Mixed feelings...
I have some very mixed feelings about this story, so this review is a difficult one to write.

This is a story about people born with violet eye color and the ability to communicate with the dead. A government organization helps them control their abilities from a very young age. Some are trained to communicate with the victims of violent crime to help give a voice to victims during their murderer's trials. It was an interesting concept taken a notch further with some sci-fi gadgetry. Then, the story begins to revolve around a plot by a serial killer to murder all the violet eyed people.

I almost stopped reading the book after the initial pages, but I persevered and ended up more than half way through the book. After debating whether to put it down and give it up again somewhere in the middle, I decided to push myself to finish it - I wanted to find out what happened.

With all that indecision, you would think that I would have given this review 2 or 3 stars. Ultimately the story was good enough to earn 4 stars. So why not 5? Well, there were some elements that were introduced that were never revisited and should have been - for example, the main character's mother was in a mental institution - we are left to guess why and then it is never mentioned again. Why include it at all? It seems that the author had planned to explore further, then forgot to. Ultimately, the story didn't tie up quite enough loose ends. It also had a highly unsatisfactory ending. So why did I give it 4 stars after all that - it was well written and gripping.

See, I said this was a mixed review. This book was entertaining, but not good enough to make my keeper shelf. It isn't a book I would ever choose to pick up and read again.