The Violet Hour

The Storyteller of the Cul‑de‑Sac

coming

There are eight houses on the circle, a pond at the bottom of the street, and a summer’s worth of kids who believe Ben Pruitt’s stories the way you believe weather. The grown-ups don’t. Ben is ten, and he tells stories, which on that street means nobody has believed a word he says in years. And this summer, something at the bottom of the street is paying attention too. Not every wave is a greeting.

Be there at dusk.

Letters from the street, only when there’s something worth telling.

One click to leave, any time. Your address goes nowhere else.

Harriet V. Bronson grew up on a Florida street very much like this one, in the last summers before everyone had a phone in their pocket. She writes about the hour after the sun and before the dark, when the porch lights come on and the parents call everyone in, and about the kids who stay out one minute longer. The Violet Hour is her first novel.