Kate’s Review: “The Undoing of Violet Claybourne”

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Book: “The Undoing of Violet Claybourne” by Emily Critchley

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Landmark, March 2025

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: 1938. Gillian Larkin is used to going unnoticed, until she is sent away to school and befriended by her roommate, the vibrant and spirited Violet Claybourne. As the Christmas holidays approach, Gilly can’t believe her luck when Violet invites her to spend them at her home, the crumbling Thornleigh Hall.

At Thornleigh, Gilly is dazzled by the family’s faded grandeur, and above all by Violet’s beguiling older sisters who seem to accept her as one of their own. But following a terrible accident in the house’s grounds, Gilly begins to realise the Claybourne sisters aren’t quite what she thought they were. And if she’s to survive in their world, she may have to become just like them . . .

A captivating novel of family secrets, desperate ambition and deepest betrayal, set against the winter of 1938, The Undoing of Violet Claybourne is the irresistible new mystery from the acclaimed author of One Puzzling Afternoon.

Review: Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark for sending me an ARC of this novel!

Back when “Downton Abbey” was all the rage I would text with my Mom about the goings on, and would occasionally go to my parents house to watch with her. We both really enjoyed it for the most part (I will admit I found later seasons to be less compelling), but my father ALWAYS hated it and would let us know how much he hated it if I was over for an episode. There was one night Dad LOST IT about the romanticization of the crumbling aristocracy blinded by privilege tramping all over the common people with no remorse after one of the Crawleys did something really callous and pretty wretched to people who worked for them, only for it to be glossed over by the show.

So that leads me to “The Undoing of Violet Claybourne” by Emily Critchley. Which pretty much puts these kinds of themes front and center as an aristocratic family clinging to power in the years leading up to WWII brings a newcomer into the fold and corrupts her with their privileged and damaging ways. I just kept thinking about my Dad’s rants as I read this book. Though admittedly, the Crawleys, for all their flaws, didn’t commit and cover up a murder…

As a historical fiction story with some thriller elements, I found “The Undoing of Violet Claybourne” to be rather tense, even if it was less about a ‘whodunnit’ and more about ‘are these spoiled rich brats going to get away with this?!’. I won’t say what ‘this’ is, as you will appreciate it more if it’s a shock, but I was definitely on pins and needles to see if the Claybourne sisters Emmeline and Laura were going to keep up their lies, with unwitting but ultimately complicit Gillian, our narrator, being slowly eaten by guilt. Especially when her complicity not only brings pain to the people at the heart of the tragedy, but also ropes Violet, her friend and the reason she was brought to this upper class home in the first place, into the web. I could see various puzzle pieces falling into place, but the absolute horror of it, knowing it was coming like a speeding train about to derail, made me SO ANXIOUS. Critchley brings in some solid shocks and twists with these various unravellings, and it was quite the ride that had me tied up in knots.

But what I really enjoyed about this book was the way that Critchley portrays her characters. You have Gillian, who was so eager to be accepted by posh and charismatic Laura and Emmeline that she threw her actual friend Violet to the side, only to end up in a murder cover up. You have Laura and Emmeline, scheming sisters that flaunt their privilege but are also in different ways constrained by it, and therefore make reckless and cruel decisions. And you have Violet, the most tragic of the characters, who is thrown to the side by her family due to her ‘peculiarities’ (it’s highly implied that she is OCD and perhaps neurodivergent in other ways), and then thrown aside by Gillian in favor of her callous and careless older sisters. The Claybournes are cold and callous, and they are exactly the bleak reality that “Downton Abbey” never really allowed their beloved Crowleys to transform into: the dying aristocracy in England before WWII that was gilded, nasty, and unfeeling. It adds to the overall unease.

“The Undoing of Violet Claybourne” is tense and upsetting, a well done historical thriller with some truly deplorable characters who have some interesting baggage. Prepare to be unnerved!

Rating 7: A tense mystery with some misbehaving elites at the helm, “The Undoing of Violet Claybourne” is a twisty ride with some good surprises against a historical backdrop of the unfeeling aristocracy in pre-WWII England.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Undoing of Violet Claybourne” is included on the Goodreads list “The [descriptive word] of [first-name] [last-name]”.