Review: Genuine, psychological thriller
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 26, 2012
The following is an excerpt from a full review at the strangeamusements blog:I encountered Carrie Green's fiction a few months ago when I had the chance to review her first collection of short stories, Roses Are Red. What I remember enjoying about the collection was her ability to skillfully handle different types of horror. In Violets Are Blue, a lengthy short story or novelette, she further demonstrates her horror chops by adding a genuine, psychological thriller to her canon.When the story begins, we meet newlyweds Todd and Sarah as they playfully engage in a game of tag in a cornfield, a game that ends with a passionate session of outdoor lovemaking. Shortly after, though, things get a lot less fun for Sarah. You see, Sarah and Todd have moved into the family farmhouse with her mother-in-law, Martha, a possessive mother, who soon shows herself to be less than a fan of Sarah. In fact, Martha is the kind of woman who only seems to have affection for her son and the violets that she grows to absurd sizes. What unfolds is a slow burning horror tale.What makes Violets Are Blue work so well are all of the psychological forces that underlie the relationships at play. When Sarah finally suspects that Martha means her real harm, Todd doesn't believe her, and she is left on her own. When you throw in the fact that Sarah may be with child, the scene is set for what amounts to a visceral battle between two mothers fighting for their offspring, and the end result is shocking...and somehow believable.Violets Are Blue is a kind of horror that stems from real human insecurity and the resulting horror that arises when those insecurities come face to face with each other.