VEG3

Violet Evergarden takes place in alternate reality Europe, somewhere around the early 20th century. The focus of the LN is around Auto Memory Dolls; Dolls created by a scientist for the purpose of assisting his blind wife write her novels. These dolls were later rented out to other people who needed their services; however, these dolls were actually just dolls that were attached to typewriters and could convert text to motion and could respond with generated voices. The twist of the series which is designed to fool the reader and the first protagonist who is a shut in is that after Auto Memory Dolls got popular, a second group of people created a company that rented out beautiful talented women who performed the same services as the original Auto Memory Dolls and "other stuff (military related)". Hodgins, http://www.kyotoanimation.co.jp/books/violet/img/character/chara02.png, was one of the people who created the concept and is Violet's boss. The whole idea of having other people write for you comes from this old occupation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanuensis
So in the first story, the protagonist Oscar thinks Violet is a robot the entire time since she's an "Auto Memory Doll" and because of her prosthetic hands. Shenanigans ensues when we the reader and Oscar find out she's human. Only Oscar falls for this though since every other protagonist knows about Auto Memory Dolls.

The LN is in a mostly episodic format where Violet travels around Europe as she is rented to various customers. The chapters are taken from the perspective of the customer since Violet's job is simply to be a beautiful typewriter. As from the CM, Violet ties peoples hearts together through her letters, putting down on paper the feelings and emotions that her customers can't. The irony of this is that Violet is cold and almost robotic so she often doesn't understand what she's writing down in the first place. The stories are very tragic, only two of them have a bittersweet ending and those are the happier ones. This is due to the nature of the people who would rent out a person to write for them in the first place.

The first chapter is about a famous writer named Oscar, who through his own talents went from nobody to Shakespeare tier. He married and had a daughter and they all lived on a lake house in a beautiful city. Tragedy strikes though when the wife reveals she has a genetic disease that often killed most people in her family and that their daughter has inherited it. The wife quickly passes while Oscar spends all the money he has in order to save his daughter. She dies several years later while talking with her father about the things she wants to do as soon as she gets out of her hospital bed. Oscar hits rock bottom and becomes a drug and alcohol addict for several years until his friend convinces him to try writing again. Oscar overcomes his addiction but finds he's unable to steady his hands anymore and is unable to write which causes his friend to recommend an Auto Memory Doll service. Oscar ends up hiring Violet and this is how the first chapter takes off. Oscar begins writing a play about the life his daughter would live if she didn't die, and he uses Violet as his model which is the scene where she is dancing in front of a lake. Through writing the play, Oscar eventually comes to terms with the death of his daughter.

http://www.kyotoanimation.co.jp/books/violet/special/tameshiyomi/01/ the entire first chapter is here on their website to read

Each of the other stories are quite varied, some take place in essentially a few rooms while others take place on the battlefield or the person, one is even a love story in an observatory on a mountain top.

A deathly ill mother and her young daughter left alone in an empty mansion by her husband who squandered their fortune. The mother wishes to use her remaining time to write her final letters while the daughter feels like her entire world is being taken away from her and lashes out against Violet.

An aspiring young baseball player who is drafted into a war but is critically wounded before Violet can save him as per his request. He asks Violet to write letters to his family and his fiance.

The young orphan of a gypsy woman who becomes an astrologist with a heart of ice which starts to melt as soon as he meets Violet.

A war criminal who fought against Violet in the war who considers himself and Violet to be the same kind of people, only one different sides of the history books.

In each of these stories, we start to piece together what happened in Violet's life to reach this point and who is the person she keeps referring to as Major when she's alone. This person is named Gilbert http://www.kyotoanimation.co.jp/books/violet/img/character/chara03.png. He's the son of a royal military family who is highly decorated for his achievements in combat. The final chapter of the LN covers Violets time during the war and how she was adopted by Gilbert.