No. 28 · The Selection · age 30
Violetta reads the last page first
Reads the ending first, swims forty lengths, and picks your next novel in three questions.
Away, back 2 October 2026 Travelling abroad; bookshop afternoons from the 2nd
- Age
- 30
- Height
- 178 cm · 5 ft 10 in
- Hair
- Long black, sleek straight
- Eyes
- Brown
- Figure
- Tall and slender
- Languages
- English
- Home district
- Belgravia
Profile updated September 2026 · portraits checked in person
Behind the glass
Violetta reads the last page of a novel first and has never once apologised for it. She likes to know where she is going. Tall and slender at 178 cm, with black hair worn long, sleek and very straight and brown eyes that keep their own counsel, she has a presence that makes a room go slightly quieter. Her style is minimal and warm: a camel coat, gold at the wrist, a palette borrowed from desert light.
Mysterious at first, elegant always, and more confident than she lets on. The surprise is her humour, dry and quick, which stays hidden until she trusts you. Early thirties, she speaks English slowly and quietly, as if every word had to earn its place. She swims lengths most mornings, goes to stand-up nights alone and laughs louder than anyone in the room, and considers a bookshop the finest possible place to spend a wet afternoon.
When she is in town, her W1 afternoon ends at Foyles on Charing Cross Road, a minute from Tottenham Court Road station, the great bookshop with its tall central atrium and a café tucked inside. She takes you to the fiction floor and picks a book for you based on three questions. Then coffee, a slow walk west, and an evening that begins wherever the conversation happens to lead.
Violetta lives in Belgravia and is abroad until 2 October, when dinner dates open again. From then she reaches Tottenham Court Road in about twenty minutes, and anywhere else in W1 not long after. Place an October date with booking and the desk will keep it for her.
Violetta's ladder
Whole pounds for whole hours, and the figure shown is the figure paid. Travel inside Zones 1 and 2 comes included; every term sits on the rates page.
| Length | Fee | Good for | Message |
|---|---|---|---|
| One hour60 min | £250 | A drink in the bar or an hour of talk upstairs | Ask |
| Ninety minutes90 min | £400 | Unhurried, with time for a second glass | Ask |
| Two hours2 hrs | £500 | Dinner nearby and the stroll back to your hotel | Ask |
| Three hours3 hrs | £700 | A show and a late supper, or a long night in | Ask |
| Dinner date4 hrs | £900 | Four hours built around a proper table | Ask |
| Overnight10 hrs | £1,800 | Ten hours, late evening through to breakfast | Ask |
| WeekendFri to Sun | On request | Priced around your plans by the desk | Ask |
Message ready
Fill the brackets, press send, and keep the room number back until the booking is confirmed.
Hello, I would like to book Violetta on [date] at [time] for [duration]. I am staying at [hotel name], and will share the room number on confirmation.
Violetta after dark
Three o'clock at Foyles. She asks her three questions: the last book you finished, the last one you abandoned, and where you would go if you could leave tonight. Then she disappears between the shelves and returns with one novel, never the obvious one, and a promise that you will thank her later.
Coffee upstairs, where she tells you the ending of the book she is reading, because of course she has already read it. Then a walk west through the early evening, past the lit windows of Oxford Street, to dinner at a quiet table. If there is a comedy night nearby she may suggest it, and she will laugh so hard at the right moments that the comedian notices her. She says goodbye with a smile you will think about on the way home.
Violetta, asked
Because then I can enjoy how the writer gets there. The ending is only one page. The journey is three hundred, and that is the part worth my time.
A long pool with a clock at one end. Forty lengths, no music, no thinking. It is the quietest hour of my day.
One with a terrible first ten minutes and a brilliant last five. I respect a comeback.
What guests wrote
This pane has no guest notes yet. They go up after genuine bookings only, once the desk has checked them; each carries a first name and when it was written, nothing explicit, and Violetta can ask for any of them to come off the glass.
Find her again
- 6 min readArtesian hours: The Langham, where Regent Street turns into Portland PlaceLondon's first grand hotel sits where the shops give way to Portland Place. Three rooms downstairs, one famous bar, and how an evening there is timed from the first glass to the last.
- 5 min readBeyond the Foodhall: sitting down inside Selfridges between the shopsThe store's dining rooms are the civilised pause in a long shopping afternoon. Where to perch, where to linger, and how a day on Oxford Street is paced with a companion beside you.
