"A master class in immersion. Don't let anybody tell you this book is a slow burn―Violet travels at the speed of horror." ―Josh Malerman, New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box and A House at the Bottom of a Lake


For many children, the summer of 1988 was filled with sunshine and laughter. But for ten-year-old Kris Barlow, it was her chance to say goodbye to her dying mother.

Three decades later, loss returns―her husband killed in a car accident. And so, Kris goes home to the place where she first knew pain―to that summer house overlooking the crystal waters of Lost Lake. It’s there that Kris and her eight-year-old daughter will make a stand against grief.

But a shadow has fallen over the quiet lake town of Pacington, Kansas. Beneath its surface, an evil has grown―and inside that home where Kris Barlow last saw her mother, an old friend awaits her return.