The Undoing of Violet Claybourne
It’s 1999, and seventy-something Gillian is visiting Thornleigh Hall. Now a National Trust property, it was once a private home: somewhere Gillian spent time as a teenager and found herself involved in events that changed her forever. She’s spent decades forgetting about what happened at Thornleigh, but a letter from a relative of the family she knew there forces Gillian to confront her past.
In 1938, lonely fifteen-year-old Gillian Larking is at boarding school. She has a neglectful family and few friends – at least until the arrival of Violet Claybourne. Violet has been brought up at Thornleigh Hall, and this is her first time at school. She’s irreverent and a little odd – and the two girls become fast friends. But when Violet invites Gillian to spend Christmas at Thornleigh, it’s her glamorous older sisters, Emmeline and Laura, who really capture Gillian’s attention. She’s drawn to spending more and more time with them instead of her friend. So much so, that when an accident occurs during the Boxing Day hunt, Gillian finds herself committing to a deception with decades long consequences, particularly for Violet.
The Undoing of Violet Claybourne is a gripping read. The prologue sets the tone nicely, and the reader feels the suspense climb. The Claybourne family harbors many secrets, all of which produce a neatly constructed conclusion when the story moves back to the modern day. With echoes of the novel Atonement, Critchley does an excellent job of portraying an upper-class English family’s decaying grandeur. This is a solid page-turner. I flew through the pages.
