The Villa is a slow burn mystery that follows two stories: one set in the present day, following two friends who take a much-needed vacation to a villa in Italy, and one set in 1974, when a historic murder occurred in the same place. One highlight for me was that the author made both timelines equally engaging and suspenseful, which is sometimes lacking in dual timelines. While we know from the start about the 1974 murder, there are also strange things occurring in the main character's life that eerily mirror the past. I found myself rooting for the two female main characters, Emily and Mari, but hated every single other character introduced (which, to be fair, I think was the point).

The only disappointments were in the reveals and finale (pseudo-spoiler alert?), where the red herrings dropped throughout the book just ended up being the resolution. The entire reveal with Chess fell flat for me, and I kept waiting for a second twist or last minute reveal to uncover something that would leave my jaw on the floor. I'd have loved a bit of a cleaner and more surprising ending, but I still think it was enjoyable to read and will definitely recommend. I found this book to be really well-written and overall it is a pretty strong book.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for offering me an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

4/10

Rachel Hawkins is a New York Times best selling author. This book, The Villa, won’t perpetuate that.

The book starts off good enough in what I thought would be a fun story of two BFFs, Em and Chess, on a trip to Italy to stay in a beautiful villa in Orvieto. Both ‘Em and Chess are authors, Em is a slightly struggling murder mystery writer where Chess is a super-famous self help guru.

There had been a murder in the villa in the 1970s so it presents a nice backdrop for unlocking the fear in everybody’s life.

But, alas, the way this book is written leaves a lot to be desired.

It goes back and forth between two stories. One is the current day trip of Em and Chess, their lives and their exploration of the 1970 murder. The other story is the 1970s group - a rockstar and the friends - and their dynamics that led to the murder and all that followed.

It’s actually a bit more confusing than that but there’s no need for me to dive deeper because the bottom line is that none of the stories are interesting.

I struggled through this book. The only reason I finished is because it was so short.

For a murder mystery, there is no tension, there’s no suspense. There are 8 main key characters in this book (3 present day, 5 in the 1970s story line), which is a lot. The book leaves you not caring about any of them. None of the character development leads to compassion or empathy. It’s like there are four or five ideas for a book crammed together in here and none of them work.

Hard pass.

#netgalley #thevilla

I enjoyed the idea of this story, but it was a bit slow for me throughout. I found the back in time parts to be a bit confusing. Overall it was an average read for me.

Struggling writer and recently divorced, Emily, is invited by her childhood best friend, Chess, to go away for six weeks to an Italian villa. Although Emily and Chess aren’t as close as they once were, Emily needs the break to get away from her divorce struggles and to try to reignite her writing. However this villa has a dark past. Emily immerses herself in learning more about the music royalty who once stayed there and left after a tragic incident. Could the villa’s sordid past be what Emily needs to spark her writing or will the tragic past become the present? I enjoyed how quickly the book had me immersed in the story. I loved the women being authors and the connection that brought them. However, I didn’t walk away liking any character by the end and especially the male characters were just too flawed and cringy. Overall a good mystery/suspense just not my favorite. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy for an honest review.

I really loved this book. The mood, the vibes, and the setting were just so on point. The juxtaposition of a summery, Italian villa with its notorious dark past mixed with characters who hold the same mystery-- beautiful women who hold storms inside.

This story felt like something Taylor Swift would write about in her songs a la Folklore and Evermore. But it also alludes to the notoriety of bands staying in a haunted home to write their hit album.

I was hooked by how this novel alternates between the past and current mysteries. Rachel Hawkins crafts a narrative where you are intrigued yet suspicious of everyone. I blew through this novel.

Rachel Hawkins books are always the best thrillers. They are creepy but thought provoking. A gothic novel set in Italy. You can try to guess how the ending will go but The villa has so many twists you are left surprised. Fans of Rachel Hawkins will love this!

This wasn’t my first book by the author and won’t be the last either.
I liked the settings as I love everything Italy and Italian. The villains was beautiful and whirl a horrible murder happened there a few years, the inspiring ideas for any reader, not only writers, can speak to everyone.
Told in dual time, this story kept me engaged throughout the chapters and I found it quite entertaining.
The ending? Not as expected but a good one for the story overall.

An intriguing and quick read. This was my first my Rachel Hawkins story and it was fast paced and kept me invested throughout. Emily and her friend Chess stay in a beautiful Italian villa that has a history. A famous murder is connected to the villa and as a writer Emily finds inspiration in the historical happenings. We get both timelines. This book kept me in my toes, and I didn’t predict the ending-though I’m not sure how I feel about the ending either.

The Villa is another great book from Rachel Hawkins. I loved the stories of Chess and Emma, trying to find their way. I loved the villa's descriptions, very atmospheric.

Wow I loved this! The Villa is about secrets and inspiration and guilt and love and writing and the ownership of art, and about how every story depends on who’s telling it. The pacing is perfect and the writing is sharp. I finished it in one sitting. Will recommend!

Houses remember. This story paints a picture of sorrow, loss, joy, and a beautiful Italian villa. Emma just wants to write again, away from her money grabbing soon to be ex husband. Chess is digging for a change in her writing career. Years ago a young life was taken in the house. From the pain rose two women, one writer and one singer. The summer long ago was for five carefree souls, wasn't doesn't make it to the end. Chess and Emma will either find greatness or destroy everything they've built. Rachel Hawkins knocked this one out of the park. Beautiful setting, excellent mix of past and present storyline, and relatable characters who just wanted more. My favorite of hers so far. Thank you so much Netgalley for the advanced copy. I can't wait for this to get in the hands of more readers.

Rachel! Girl! You continue to get me at every corner. I always know I can rely on her books and this is no exception. Amazing plot, Great characters and even better suspense

Emily is trying to get through a rocky divorce, so her friend Chess decides to rent a villa for her and Emily to share and get away to focus on writing their next books. Chess is a known self-help writer, while Emily is a lesser known fiction writer. Emily's soon-to-be ex husband is trying to claim partial ownership of her successful series of books, so Emily is determined to write something different and reinvent herself as a writer.

Emily immediately becomes interested in the murder that happened years ago at the same villa her and Chess are renting. She decides to use this to her advantage to help jumpstart her next book. As Emily digs deeper, she finds out more and more information that lead up to the murders.

The book is told in the POVs of both Emily (present) and Mari (past). While I liked the overall premise of the book, it fell rather flat for me. It was certainly not twisty enough for me to remain interested throughout the entire book. I wish I could say that the ending made up for all of the book's misgivings, but sadly it does not. I should have learned my lesson with this author after Reckless Girls. I'll probably skip any future books by this author.

Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC of this book in exchange my honest review.

The Villa is an inky-dark look at two sets of best friends coping with some jaw-dropping betrayals. It unfortunately sports some predictable twists, and then takes far too many distracting excursions along its primrose pathway, all of which keeps it from pulling a higher grade.

Motivational author Chess Chandler (WIP: Swipe Right on Life!) and mystery author Emily Sheridan have been friends since they were girls, but job responsibilities and relationship issues (specifically Emily’s marriage and then very messy divorce from her accountant-husband, Matt) have pushed them apart in adulthood. After Emily’s divorce, the twosome agree to head out on an Italian holiday – to a ‘murder house,’ the Villa Aestas.

The Aestas was formerly known as the Villa Rosato, location of the Villa Rosato Horror. In 1974, Guitarist/songwriter Pierce Sheldon, fellow musician Noel Gordon, hanger on/drug supplier/possible groupie Johnnie Dorchester, and Pierce’s teenage girlfriend and her stepsister converge on the villa for a single summer. Noel is in the middle of a creative slump and trying to refresh his mind after his band broke up and the rest of its members embarked on satisfying solo careers. Pierce, a relative industry newbie, decides a retreat to write some fresh material is what he needs - but soon the month-long sojourn turns sour.

Pierce’s nineteen-year-old girlfriend Mari Godwick is a rule-breaking science fiction writer in-the-making whose entire life has been lived among the famous and neglectful; she and her stepsister ran away to live with Pierce when she was just sixteen. Mari was inspired to write a single, genius book by the events of that weekend weekend entitled Lilith Rising, which made her name, but she has not published anything since; she considers the death of her baby son when she was barely eighteen just punishment for her actions at that time. Her stepsister, Lara Larchmont, then a neophyte songwriter and guitarist, is inspired by the situation to write an album, Aestas and cultivates a sunny public persona and a decent musical career, one that’s forever dwarfed by Aestas’ success. But her music is haunted by Fleetwood Mac-style representations of messy romantic triangles which are killing everyone and everything in the lover’s pathways, and she is compared often to Carole King. The two women survived the Vila Rosato horror but their lives are forever tainted and shadowed by what they’ve been through. But who died, and who was the murderer?

Decades later, to break a writing slump and haunted by her inability to mesh with Chess, Emily decides she’s going to find out what really happened during the Vila Rosato Horror. This leads her to revelations about her relationship with Chess and the bond they share – as well as a connection between Chess and Matt.

The Villa spends a lot of time in deep character study before getting to the dual mysteries that underpin the book. It successfully brings about a sense of dread and foreboding, but a series of double-twists toward the end of the novel make no sense and read as, frankly, ludicrous.

The novel tries to build a connection between the two tales of sisterhood with an interlinked tale of infidelity, but while most of the men in these tales are equally monstrous, Hawkins’ modern women are less interesting. Chess and Emily read as interchangeable, with Chess being the clear manipulator using psychobabble to justify her choices while Emily generally wallows in her victimhood until she chooses to excise the wickedness from her life. The author has better luck with Mari and Lara, who come off as realistically naive and tortured to start with, then as realistically desperate and embittered, trying to make their lives seem bigger than they are in reaction to what they’ve been through. If the book had been about the latter twosome I definitely wouldn’t be ranking this lower than a B, but the predictability of where the modern storyline goes dragged it down for me.

Those coming to this novel hoping for romance will be quite disappointed; Pierce and Noel are both bounders to differing degrees; Matt is flatly and cartoonishly dislikeable, and the only likable person around is Johnnie – and what happens to him shouldn’t happen to a dog. Only the sisterhoods here – one unhealthily close and twisted, binding the two women together forever in a choking lie, the other smashed to death in a bid for freedom – are what matters.

It’s surprising Rachel Hawkins doesn’t name-drop Mary Shelley while talking about female science fiction writers at the beginning of the book. It’s that kind of ineptitude that helps make The Villa an imperfect but somewhat compelling mess of a novel.

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This surprised me in many ways. I absolutely loved the twist, the duel timelines and the parallels between the two stories. I was intrigued, engaged and really really enjoyed this one. Plus A+++++ for cover!

Wow there was a lot to digest here. Sometimes it was a bit difficult to swallow but it tasted pretty good and went down fairly easy so no worries there. And in the end I felt satisfied and full.

Thank you for this opportunity! I will update with links once all reviews are live.

The Villa

4.5 ⭐️

I love Rachel Hawkins’ writing—Both the thrillers and the witchy romcoms. The Villa is her latest Thriller coming out this January!

The Villa covers two best friends renting an Italian Villa to work on their next books. In alternating chapters we learn about the murder that happened in the house in the seventies. As with most of Rachel’s books these characters are a little bit twisted and no one is blameless.

I enjoyed how quickly this book went and was so happy to get an advanced copy from @netgalley and Stmartinspress

If you’re looking for something that’s a little bit thriller and a little bit historical fiction, check this out in January!

This book has a great premise but unfortunately it seemed to fall flat for me. I could not find myself connecting with the characters and the plot line seemed to drag on. I stopped reading about 2/3 of the way through

For maybe the first time ever, I went into this book completely blind with no idea what it was about or even what genre it was. I read The Wife Upstairs, Rachel Hawkins’ loose take on Jane Eyre, last year and really enjoyed it. So it comes as no surprise that she as once again found inspiration in gothic romanticism.

When it comes to thrillers or suspense novels, I tend to prefer dual pov narratives. What made this book so interesting and engaging was the dual perspectives taking place in the same villa, separated only by the 40 years between Mari’s visit and Emily’s. In addition, the book contains news articles and podcasts that give you yet another perspective on what is occurring and help to fill in some of the missing details.

I listened to this one on audio, while reading along with the book, and of course the audio was amazing. Julia Whelan can do no wrong, and her counterpart Kimberly M. Wetherell was equally excellent.

Read if you like:
•domestic suspense
•historical thrillers
•dual POVs
•books about books
•mary shelley’s frankenstein

Than you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC of this book, and Libro.fm for the ACL in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this book!

I've been a fan of Rachel for awhile, and have enjoyed her last two mystery/thriller novels The Wife Upstairs, and Reckless Girls, so I was very excited to read this one. I also love mysteries where the location or house is part of the overall mystery and almost becomes a character itself. The book was inspired by "Fleetwood Mac, the Manson murders, and the infamous summer Percy and Mary Shelley spent with Lord Byron at a Lake Geneva castle––the birthplace of Frankenstein", and you'll find all those elements within the book.

The pieces of the story fall into place while being told from both present day Emily, and 1970s Mari. There's a big murder mystery to figure out, but also smaller scandals and lies that come to light. I also enjoyed the inclusion of Aestas' lyrics, and various lines from Mari, Emily, and Chess' books and how they help provide insight into the characters' minds as well as help you with the mysteries. The common denominator between the two timelines, so that woman can be held back from their true potential by toxic men. Houses remember.

Read this if you enjoy mysteries and thrillers that keep you guessing until the end.