V for Violet by Alison Rattle

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 304

Publisher: Hot Key Books 

Released: 7th of April 2016 

Battersea, 1961. London is just beginning to enter the swinging sixties. The world is changing - but not for sixteen-year-old Violet. She was born at the exact moment Winston Churchill announced Victory in Europe - an auspicious start, but now she's just stuck in her family's fish and chip shop dreaming of greatness. And it doesn't look like fame and fortune are going to come calling anytime soon. 

Then she meets Beau. Beau's a rocker - a motorcycle boy who arrives in an explosion of passion and rebellion. He blows up Violet's grey little life, and she can't believe her luck.

But things don't go her way for long. Joseph, her long-lost brother, comes home. Then young girls start going missing, and turning up murdered. And then Violet's best friend disappears too. Suddenly life is horrifyingly much more interesting. 

Violet can't believe its coincidence that Joseph turns up just as girls start getting murdered. He's weird, and she feels sure he's hiding something. He's got a secret, and Violet's got a dreadful feeling it might be the worst kind of secret of all . . .

What I Have to Say

This isn't the kind of book that catches you from the first page. Violet has a dull kind of life working at her parents chip shop and it's not until her life starts to get interesting and she stops doing what's expected of her. Then girls start getting killed and you get caught up in the mystery of it all. 

I liked Violet quite a bit. She had an honest voice that endeared me towards her in the start of the book. I was glad when she started to stand up for herself a bit and find her own identity outside of her friend and family. 

The mystery didn't catch me until near the end, but it was one of those where you're kicking yourself for not guessing who it was. Because you think of everyone it could be and don't even consider the person it is. 

It was a good book overall, but I'm not sure it's one that's going to stay with me for a long time. 

My thanks go to Hot Key Books and Netgalley for providing me with this copy for review.