This book had some really dark themes, but I didn’t mind them at all. I found the book to be insane, in the best way possible. I don’t think it’s for everyone, but it was definitely for me. I would definitely recommend to anyone that likes books that are dark, twisty and don’t mind certain triggers/themes.

I struggled with this. It's not an easy read. The writing style was difficult to get into, and honestly, I never fully got into it. This story has a lot of triggers, so be sure you're well informed before picking this up. There's A lot of purple prose and unnecessarily long descriptions that give nothing to the plot or the story as a whole. This book's redeeming piece is the ending. The most delicious revenge.

"Dark Violin" is a gripping, emotionally charged novel that blends mystery, romance, and psychological depth. The story follows a talented yet tormented violinist who becomes entangled in a web of secrets, betrayal, and personal demons. The author masterfully weaves a narrative full of tension and unexpected twists, with rich character development that keeps readers engaged until the very end. The atmospheric setting, combined with the haunting power of music, elevates the novel into a deeply immersive experience. Though some plot elements feel familiar, the compelling characters and their inner struggles make Dark Violin a captivating read for those who enjoy complex, character-driven stories.

I really struggled with this one. I am sure that it will resonate with its target audience but I am definitely not in the group

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3 things: (1) If you choose to read this book, please check trigger warnings… seriously, they are on every third page, (2) The Author is obsessed with cigarette smoke… if you read the story you will totally get that, and (3) The ending of this revenge story is completely OUTRAGEOUS in the best possible way! 5 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️!

Unfortunately I was unable to finish this book. I may try to read it later, but I wasn’t in the right headspace for the things mentioned. It was very descriptive and I liked the atmosphere.

I did struggle throughout to stay interested. This is not the type of book that I usually read and I think that made it hard to read. It took me a bit to finish the book.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley.

This book ended up being really hard to read and I had a really tough time with it. The writing style was terrible. After the dream-like beginning, we are lead into super disjointed dialogue. The storytelling is confusing and chaotic. I could not get through this one and DNF. I am surprised this book is getting published.

date published: 01.15.25

0 stars / No Rating / DNF

thank you to netgalley and victory editing for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

DNF at 30%, this book just wasn’t for me. when I first started it, it sucked me in right away until I got a few chapters into it. there are so many different things happening and the chapters are very long, so I ended up losing interest.

I don’t usually rate a book unless I finish it but this was not the case. To submit my review I have to rate it.

While I found the writing style of this book good enough to finish, I did struggle throughout to stay interested. The first few chapters are almost dream-like, which some may find interesting, but for me the storyline felt very disjointed. Avoiding spoilers, I would like to say I did not like the way certain topics were handled, as many of the scenes felt like exploitation of real, life-altering, and defining events, without delving into the complexities of these such subjects, and I did not feel like these topics were handled in a respectful manner. Overall, I would recommend other novels over this one.

very uncomfortable with the views on trans women in this one, and some of the violence felt like trauma porn. what message are we suppose to get here?

Do not read this book!

This book is a paradox—I hated it, yet I couldn’t put it down. Given an ARC for review, I found myself trapped in a mental tug-of-war. Did I like it? Did I despise it? Who knows! But one thing’s for sure: this book sucks. That’s it. That’s the review.

Okay, fine, I’ll elaborate.

This book is not for the faint of heart. It dives headfirst into the kind of dark, disturbing themes that most authors wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole—incest, murder, and enough graphic content to make your stomach turn. It doesn’t just push boundaries; it torches them and dances in the ashes like a gleeful pyromaniac.

Now, do I like what I read? Absolutely not. Some parts made me uncomfortable. But I also can’t deny that it’s bold—so bold that it basically dares readers to get offended. And trust me, they will. If you’re someone who gets worked up over the slightest detail, this book is like a personalized invitation to rage.

Honestly, I don’t know whether to applaud the author for the audacity or send my condolences in advance. In today’s world, where people gets easily offended over anything, this book is asking for trouble.

Now, let’s talk about triggers. If you ignore the warnings and dive in anyway, that’s on you. Reading a book with heavy themes and then complaining about them is like being allergic to shrimp, eating shrimp anyway, and then blaming the chef when you break out in hives. If you’re gonna read something this dark, you better own that choice.

That being said, some of the conversations in this book were actually pretty deep—not weird. If you don’t talk to enough people, you might find it weird. But if you’re not stuck on some moral high ground, looking down at the rest like a self-righteous sage, then guess what? It’s just called talking. People talk normally with depth. That’s how it is. If you find it weird then that’s on you.

So yes, this book sucks—but only because it’s so dark and gruesome that it made me physically uncomfortable. And isn’t that the point?

Would I recommend it? Only if you’re ready. If not, maybe stick to shrimp-free books.

So yeah, this book sucks. And I begrudgingly respect it. LOL.

It is rare for me to DNF a book. I am more likely to suffer through it so that I can leave a thoughtful review about why the book didn’t work for me. But after several days reading this book and only getting 30% in, I have to just admit to myself that I’m done.

For a book with socking themes of incest and murder, the way this book is written is incredibly boring. Pacing is punishingly slow, the layered storytelling is confusing and ineffective, but the characters are what bothered me the most. Dialogue and even some characters choices are so unnatural that it makes me suspect it was written by AI.

I desperately tried to get into this book but it was not happening for me.

Thank you to Victory Editing for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Nyx Solis delivers a haunting, deeply unsettling psychological thriller with Dark Violin, a novel that lingers in your mind long after the final page. This is not just a story about trauma—it’s a chilling descent into the blurred lines between victim and villain, survival and destruction.

Celine begins as an innocent girl with simple dreams: to master the violin and mend her fractured family. But a single, horrifying discovery in her parents’ room changes everything. What follows is a nightmarish spiral into abuse, madness, and a suffocating sense of isolation. Her father’s monstrous presence looms over her life, while her mother’s sanity disintegrates, leaving only a cryptic warning: “Don’t let him in.” But evil doesn’t need permission—it’s already inside.

Solis masterfully crafts a psychological landscape filled with tension, pain, and a terrifying sense of inevitability. The novel explores the harrowing effects of generational trauma, the darkness that festers in the shadows of family secrets, and the chilling question: what happens when the abused becomes something just as terrifying? The prose is sharp and evocative, immersing the reader in Celine’s fractured reality, where safety is an illusion and escape feels impossible.

For fans of dark psychological thrillers like those by Gillian Flynn and Caroline Kepnes, Dark Violin is a gripping, nerve-wracking read that forces you to question everything. It’s a story of survival, vengeance, and the terrifying truth that sometimes, the worst monsters are the ones who say goodnight. If you’re looking for a novel that will disturb, captivate, and leave you breathless, Dark Violin is an unforgettable journey into the darkest corners of the human psyche.

Dark Violin
Intense, utterly compelling thriller with some horror thrown in.
It was a very tense and unsettling ride for me.

I did finish this, but at what cost.

Perhaps the most notable thing about this book (aside from the content, but we'll get there) is how much it needed another editing pass. The prose is really atrocious, particularly after the first few chapters. I was willing to forgive the first chapters for just feeling a bit dream-like and detached from reality as a stylistic choice, but when Mira is introduced in what is clearly the normal world, it stops working. The dialogue is often stilted and unnatural, with my personal favorite instance of this being when a characters tells another "'You know, in our culture, plastic surgery is often seen as taboo'". Two scenes begin with very similar descriptions of a character drinking coffee that wasn't a particularly good description to begin with. Considering the importance of music to the novel, it's really unfortunate that the descriptions of music are so nothing and sound somewhat odd (the description of the choir being a prime example). The less said about the sex scenes the better (I will be forever haunted by the phrase "wet pearl"). It often reads like mediocre fan fiction, because where else would you encounter a character unironically referring to "my twisted psyche".

[SPOILERS FOR LATER PLOT INCIDENTS]

The frequent scenes of sexual violence overall just feel... gauche. To be clear, I'm not opposed to the portrayal of sexual violence in fiction; I object when it seems to just be thrown in with little interest in exploration of its complexities and effects. The novel seems deeply convinced that it has a lot of to say about abuse, but it really doesn't. It says that abuse is bad, and sometimes people are just broken and cannot be fixed. This is not as hot a take as the novel seems to think it is, and the exploration of these ideas is one-note and basic. There is no acknowledgement of the fact that almost everyone in the Montreal family can be read as a victim and perpetrator, particularly Ramiro. This isn't to say that he did nothing wrong (he VERY much did), but he presumably was impacted by the culture of abuse that her father created in the household, and the novel never acknowledges that beyond him saying "I'm so fucked up, you're the only person who can love me" (not a direct quote) to Celine. Celine is the only person in the text who is allowed to be harmed and cause harm, but there's no complexity in her portrayal either. She just magically becomes evil after suffering an almost comical amount (including vaguely orgasmic self-harm, which just. Kill me now.). Kevin has dubiously consensual (at best) sex with Mira a few times, but it's just treated as something scary that's happening. It's unclear if Mira remembers what happens, and Kevin never reacts to it (which, considering later revelations in the book, suggests some rather unsavory things about the origins of familial abuse). Mira is quite literally violently raped, but the novel totally glosses over it. It's treated as part of Celine's revenge and Mira is not given much space to react to her rape. SPEAKING OF THAT

[SPOILERS FOR THE FINAL TWIST]

So Mira is a secret trans woman! She was Ramiro the whole time! Celine/Lauren did surgery on her and got her to take hormones this whole time! Oh my god! Don't piss me off! It plays into so many harmful stereotypes about trans women, with them being deceptive, sexually violent, and secretly men. It also treats transition as a kind of body horror, especially because it's done as a way for Celine to emasculate Ramiro, and like much of the on-page rape in this novel, it seems included for shock value more than to really work through Mira's feelings about what happened to her. It's gross and dehumanizing of trans people, and it's a little shocking to me that this plot point is in a book published in 2025.

There are other things that I could complain about, like the plot holes (who the hell is Mira's mother and how did she get involved, why can that small child see ghosts, how does Celine top and play the violin during sex while partially paralyzed) and the way in which everything is either over- or under-explained (the narration drawing specific attention to the parallels between the nature documentary and George's murder twice in two pages vs. the bit at the end where Celine plays the violin in front of her family, including dead people). But, what sticks with me the most is how boring this book was. Scenes occur. Some of the scenes contain explicit incestuous violence. All of the scenes include characters speaking in a way that no human being has ever spoken. It doesn't really get insane enough to be enjoyable in an ironic way until three quarters of the way through the book, which is not ideal.

Do not read this book. There are much better thrillers out there.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

It is a mix-bag blending psychological, thrill, suspense and a little dip into the horror genre. Before diving into the story, it’s important to note that it comes with a few warnings—there are themes that might be unsettling for some readers. So, it’s definitely worth checking these warnings before you start reading.

This is not my usual read, but I found myself fully engaged, and so far, it hasn’t let me down. The standout aspect of this book is the satisfying finale. "Revenge. It's the ultimate satisfaction."
I appreciated how it wrapped up—giving the victim the justice she deserves.

However, I did find certain elements a bit over the top, especially the twists in the end—the explanation of what happened to Ramiro. It is possible, but I still think it's a bit unrealistic. Then there’s Dr. Reyes, who, as the plot unfolds, seems to fade into the background. And Kevin, I hope there's a better ending for the lad.

All in all, I really enjoyed the read. I would rate it around 3.5, pushing it to a 4 because it’s just different and unique in its darker approach. It kept my interest piqued, and although some aspects stretched the bounds of possibility, the overall experience was engaging. This book definitely isn't your typical read, but that's part of its charm!

This book is incredible. It masterfully blurs the lines between reality, imagination, and consequence. Dark Violin brings out the worst of the worst at all of the right times and doesn’t shy away from difficult imagery.

I initially enjoyed the opening. The heavy description of the violin performance brought me a sort of warmth. It was exaggerated, but in a comforting way that almost made you feel the music. This very quickly changed to an incredibly dark place when you learn the subject of the story. Violence, sexual assault, incest, murder, trauma. All are some the worst of the worst crimes , and they are portrayed in such a way to make you either squeamish or sucked in. It’s a difficult read if you are disturbed by such things, but if you can manage it, it’s an amazing story.

Some of my gripes mainly fall within the realm of too much imagery. Yes, believe it or not, you can over describe things. Was it annoying? Yeah. Did it add much to the story? Kind of. Even when it mentioned sun light shining, my vision of the whole book was dark and damp, like a rainy detective novel vibe. I often found myself not paying attention to the visuals. But I stuck it through, read it all, and I couldn’t be more pleased. If someone asked me to describe the entire book, I could. Vividly.

The twists are a big part of thrillers. But I can 100% tell you, this book does NOT follow the easy to follow and guess guidelines of most novels. Every step of the way I was questioning myself and my sanity because I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I knew what was going on, but the amount of twists and changes made it impossible to figure out the ending. I LOVED that.

Overall:
This book is nearly flawless. It combines everything you need in a horror/thriller, and it does it masterfully. The author should be praised for this type of work. My ONLY complaint, is the massive amount of over describing things. Other than that, it’s one of my most favorite books I’ve read in a while.

A chilling psychological thriller that blurs the line between victim and villain, Dark Violin explores pain, survival, and the monsters lurking in plain sight. Dark, intense, and deeply unsettling—read with caution.

Wowza!!! Just wow!! It's difficult to describe what I just read, but know that this book is amazingly unique!! I am very stingy with giving 5 star reviews, but this book has definitely earned all 5 stars!!!

The book started out with a few "Content Warnings" to include death, violence, abuse, incest, sexual assault, and trauma. The book does touch on all of those things, however, none of the events go into detail.

The first chapter spent an obscene amount of time describing Celine playing the violin. It was VERY painful to read. I eventually found myself skipping over some of the words and hoping the rest of the book didn't follow in the same manner. Thankfully, it did not!

With Celine's mother suffering from depression, she finds herself a victim of her father's horrific "games". Just how much can one young girl take?

I did find the manner in which this book was written to be slightly frustrating. The book alternated between several different time periods, and it wasn't always easy to determine when each scene was taking place. Additionally, it was somewhat difficult to keep up with all of the different "characters" .

This book is definitely not for the reader who likes quick, easy reads. This books makes you think and question things.

Kudos to the author on writing and publishing a unique, well written must read!!!

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion/review.