The Violence

"Delilah Dawson might have written the novel that defines this era."—Stephen Graham Jones, NYT bestselling author of The Only Good Indians.

A provocative, timely, heart-wrenching thriller that will appeal to fans of Naomi Alderman's The Power and Christina Sweeney-Baird's The End of Men.

When Chelsea Martin kisses her husband hello at the door of their perfect home, a chilled bottle of beer in hand and dinner on the table, she may look like the ideal wife, mother, and homemaker—but in fact she's following an unwritten rulebook, carefully navigating David's stormy moods in a desperate nightly bid to avoid catastrophe. If family time doesn't go exactly the way David wants, bad things happen—to Chelsea, and to the couple's seventeen-year-old daughter, Ella. Cut off from all support, controlled and manipulated for years, Chelsea has no resources and no one to turn to. Her wealthy, narcissistic mother, Patricia, would rather focus on the dust on her chandelier than acknowledge Chelsea's bruises. After all, Patricia's life looks perfect on the surface, too.

But the façade crumbles when a mysterious condition overtakes the nation. Known as the Violence, it causes the infected to experience sudden, explosive bursts of animalistic rage and attack anyone in their path. The ensuing chaos brings opportunity for Chelsea—and inspires a plan to liberate herself and her family once and for all.



Delilah S. Dawson is the New York Times bestselling writer of Star Wars: PHASMA, plus Galaxy's Edge: Black Spire, The Secrets of Long Snoot, She Will Keep Them Warm, Worthless, The Perfect Weapon, and Scorched; the Blud series, Servants of the Storm, the HIT series, the Minecraft: Mob Squad series, Mine, Wake of Vultures and the Shadow series (as Lila Bowen). With Kevin Hearne, she is the co-writer of the Tales of Pell series. Her new standalone, The Violence, a generational trauma tale set during a pandemic of random outbreaks of violence is published in 2022. Her comics credits include the creator-owned Ladycastle #1-4, Sparrowhawk #1-5, Star Pig #1-4, and many others as well as stories in Star Wars Adventures #5, #6, #18, #25, and Star Wars: Forces of Destiny: Rose and Paige for IDW. Her most recent comics project is Wellington, written with Aaron Mahnke of the Lore podcast. Delilah is the winner of the 2015 Fantasy Book of the Year from RT Book Reviews for Wake of Vultures and the 2013 Steampunk Book of the Year and May Seal of Excellence for Wicked As She Wants. Her work has earned multiple stars from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal. She lives in north Atlanta with her family.