Furious Violet: A Novel

"Crime writer Violet is happy in her solitary life, though dogged by the fame of her mother, a poet and feminist icon who died young. Then a stalker begins threatening Violet. Is it one of her mother's fans? A scathing indictment of fan culture, the true-crime industry and society's treatment of women." -People Magazine

From the author of the bestselling phenomenon Dietland comes a razor-sharp, subversive thriller about motherhood, obsession, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.

Violet "West" Shelley, a self-described "low-brow" crime journalist, has unwillingly spent her life in the spotlight, as the only daughter of a legendary poet and feminist icon who died tragically young. Now as West approaches fifty-burned out, creatively blocked, and far older than her mother ever was-she retreats to her desolate Colorado hometown to finish a long-overdue book about the Crying Killer, a serial killer who sobs for his mother after committing his crimes.

But what begins as a bid for solitude quickly spirals into something far more sinister. A stalker emerges-mysterious, relentless, and disturbingly intimate-claiming that West is their mother; yet West knows this is impossible. As threatening messages escalate and her carefully constructed life starts to unravel, West is drawn into a chilling psychological web where the boundaries between fiction and reality collapse.

Is she being watched? Hunted? Or is her own mind turning against her?

Gripping, provocative, and laced with pitch-black humor, Furious Violet is a psychological thrill ride and a fierce exploration of motherhood, fame, and the question of who can lay claim to women's legacies. Sarai Walker delivers a heroine unlike any other: damaged, defiant, and utterly unforgettable.