Life in Violet is the story of Violet McKay, a psychotherapist who lives alone in a little house overlooking the ocean. She names her house "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue" unwittingly revealing her sense of life. Despite an intense and often overwhelming inner life, Violet believes she has been "therapized and sanitized" out of her early experiences of betrayal and loss. It takes an injury and a sexual obsession with a psychiatrist to break open her past and reveal her own deep need for healing. In the course of her relationships with her clients and three men, a priest, an actor and a widower, Violet finds herself, forgiveness, and new life.