I love Rachel Hawkins and everything she writes! The Villa was no different. The writing flows so well, the story was suspenseful and entertaining. I really loved this book! It was definitely be another hit.

The Villa came out of the gate strong! The ending, however, left me with a lot of open ended or just flat unanswered questions. I will have to give absolute props for the character development, though! This was very fast paced and a pretty quick and easy read. Overall, I felt the book was pretty middle of the road compared to other mystery/thrillers out there- and especially compared to Rachel Hawkin's other writing. If you are familiar with her work, I would rate this title somewhere in between The Wife Upstairs and Reckless Girls.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with this book in exchange for an honest review.

Houses remember......

What a perfect line to interweave two stories together. It had me invested from the very beginning. This was a definite page burner, gripping from start to finish. I oftentimes found myself thinking about the story when I put it down and I love that in a book! I could understand how Em was relatable to Mari and Chess to Lara, these characters were crafted with such feeling to one another that it gave the story even more depth and intrigue. The story within a story was a great touch and made it even better than expected! For me, it lost a star because I would've loved to have more of an atmospheric description than a detailed description of the love scenes, otherwise it was an awesome book that I'll be handing out to everybody who loves mystery and thrillers alike. Solid read to immerse yourself in!

Thank you St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!!

I absolutely loved this book! It was more of a slow burn than a fast-paced thriller, but the characters and storyline were interesting enough that I read the book in only 2 days! I love the parallels between the dual-timelines and how the love triangles reflected one another in so many ways. Also- the vibes of the Italian villa and the 70s-era musicians are IMMACULATE.

I also love how Chess and Emily ~allegedly~ killing Matt coincided with their (believed) assumption that they were echoing what happened in the villa 50 years before. However, based on that 1993 chapter, Mari was not actually the one to kill Pierce. The last chapter was a Verity-like plot twist where the whole reality of the book was turned on its head! But was that 1993-written last chapter kept from Emily? It was my understanding that Emily was aware of the 1993 chapter and did not tell Chess, because she wanted to convince Chess to help her kill Matt. But at the same time-- did Emily even know about the 19/93 chapter??? Was it even included in the journal found in the villa, or was that chapter only known by the reader? I believe that this book is going to be a hit - readers will be debating about it for years. I have already ranted about the ending to my husband for over an hour.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Rachel Hawkins for the ARC! I had never read Rachel Hawkins before, but I am now a fan for sure!

This is my favorite of Hawkin's novels! I lived for the gothic vibes and nothing makes me love a book more than a story in a story. The twists were fantastic and I can't wait to have this beautiful cover on my shelves. I am also a huge fan of the Ex Hex stories and I loved to see more of the spooky gothic vibes from this autobuy author!

4.5 stars
I've been a HUGE fan of Rachel Hawkins since The Wife Upstairs, and once again, this did not disappoint. I loved the story and the multiple POVs. It's hard to adequately write a review without giving too much away so I will just say this - OMG THE ENDING! The book was well-crafted and interesting, and I flew through it in less than a day. I could not put it down. I'm still thinking about it 2 days later, so that tells you something.
I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this to others.

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for the ARC!

I have read other books by this author and wasn't impressed but this book I think is her best so far. It has a lot more layers than her others and they story is much more evolved. The characters were a little one dimensional but still believable. Also, the cover is beautiful! .

I really enjoyed this one. I appreciated the different perspectives and loved the setting in Italy even though there wasn’t a lot of focus on the villa itself. The modern day storyline definitely took a while to build up but I got into it more at the end as it picked up but I didn’t love Chess and Emily’s relationship. I enjoyed Mari’s story significantly more but did find it a bit difficult to follow as the story jumped from Mari’s timeline back to Emily’s. Overall, I enjoyed the book!

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press, Rachel Hawkins and NetGalley for this ARC!

***3.75***

I would like to start off that I absolutely love all things Rachel Hawkins. That obsession started back in high school when I read the Hex Hall series. I will die on the hill of saying that it was one of the best series ever, no one can change my mind. The cover is beautiful! The plot intriguing!

However, this one was very hard for me to get into. It wasn’t until about the 40%-50% mark that I was able to breeze through it.

The Villa follows two different story lines 50 years apart. Emily and her best friend Jessica “Chess” in current day. They are both authors. Chess mainly focuses on non-fiction self help books and has become very successful. While Emily has focused on fiction mystery novels and her life is spiraling out of control. Her career is on the edge, her marriage is in shambles, she is very sick, etc. Chess decides they should take a vacation to Italy and visit a famous Villa where a murder occurred 50 years ago.

In the 1970s there is Mari and her stepsister Lara, both 19. Mari is dating a musician Pierce Sheldon. Lara gets involved with a famous musician Noel Gordon and they all go to the Villa - Rosato for the summer in Italy with Noel’s friend Johnnie. With the theme of sex, love, and rock and roll, I found this time line much more like-able and interesting than Emily and Chess.

I’ll start off with stating that Chess had to be one of the most ANNOYING characters I have ever read in a book. From her preppy attitude at all times, to being condescending to Emily, trying to steal Emily’s ideas, and let’s not forget the whole affair with Emily’s husband that she tried to claim she did to help Emily realize he was making her sick?? Like Chess are you okay in the head?? No I don’t think so. You might need to read your own self help books for advice. Emily is not much more like-able. But the story is told from her point of view so her inner monologue is much better than her portrayal of Chess.

Mari and Lara’s timeline was much more like-able and interesting being that it followed the 70s sex, love and rock and roll vibes. Noel was by far my favorite character because he was unapologetically himself. While Mari was too scared to be her true self because of pierce and she was still having a hard time with the death of their child. Meanwhile Pierce married to a whole other woman that he just walked out on to be with Mari. Lara is a whiner. Nothing ever goes her way and she complains about it all. Everyone loves Mari. No one loves her. However, I am very proud of her taking time to develop her own music and not just be a Groupie to Noel. Johnnie could have been much more developed and like-able. I feel like he was thrown in there to blame the murder on tbh. I would have liked to see him and Mari get together and that be the reason Pierce was murdered. Not over Lara’s pregnancy might being Pierce’s vs Noel’s.

Overall. I liked the addition of podcasts, news articles, etc at the end of the chapters. But I would have preferred that the POVs be separated by chapters. Mari and her time line in one chapter and Emily and her timeline in another chapter.

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you NetGalley for giving me this advanced opportunity!

Really liked this book! Great pace and enjoyed the dual timelines. And had twists that I didn’t see coming! Would have liked more unpacking of Chess and Em at the end.


https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4908940254

Love Rachel Hawkins and her 3rd book didn't dissappoint! Perfect getaway or vacation read. Loved the setting and characters and the twists, good lord!! So good! Highly recommend! Thank you NetGalley for this ARC

Houses remember. Childhood friends Chess and Emily vacation in an old home with dark history. Chess and Emily seem to be competing as writers of opposite genres using the vacation and the home as a muse. This book was a thoroughly enjoyable book that had a book inside a book feel to it.

This is the third Rachel Hawkins novel I've read (The Wife Upstairs, Reckless Girls) and I enjoyed that this book, like the other two I have read, also paid homage to great works of literature. This new novel bring in elements of the life of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley through the character of Mari, which is juxtaposed by the other main character, Emily, who is staying in the same villa in Italy today that Mari stayed in during the summer of 1974. Emily starts to dig into the events of that summer in 1974 that results in Mari writing a best selling horror novel after the murder of her lover, Piece Sheldon. The story jumps back and forth between Emily and Mari's stories, with twists and turns along the way. Another solid work from Rachel Hawkins.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

I am so glad that I am not alone with how I felt about this book. I was really worried I was in a reading slump. It wasn’t good. It just wasn’t. I was bored. I couldn’t connect it. The writing was beautiful, without a doubt, and the setting was both spooky and ethereal. But this lacked the punch Rachel Hawkins is so good at. It lacked the twists and turns, the big reveal, the adrenaline. I wanted more from this one, and it seems like a lot of readers did, too.

Poor Percy Shelley(strikethrough) Pierce Sheldon!

Rachel Hawkins’s The Villa unravels two mysteries from two generations in the idyllic Italian countryside.

In 1974, fading rocker Noel Gordon invites up-and-comer Pierce Sheldon—along with his teenage girl friend, Mari, and her stepsister, Lara—to Villa Rosato for a summer of sex, drugs, and creative collaboration. Following along behind the group is Johnnie, a Noel devotee and drug dealer. Before the summer ends, Mari wrote her groundbreaking novel, Lilith Rising, Lara wrote her best-selling, sad mom favorite, folk record Aestas, and Pierce lay dead and bloody on the floor.

In the present, cozy-mystery writer Emily spends the summer with her once best friend Chess, an increasingly sinister Rachel Hollis-esque self-help guru. Both work on their respective writing amid growing tension and obsession as Emily becomes fixated on the villa’s history.

Hawkins creates engrossing characters, updating the Year Without Summer and the events at Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva that led to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Noel Gordon, as an updated Lord Byron, maintains the intrigue but is given a sympathetic depth and the acuteness of tragedy Mary Godwin, the novel’s Mari, faced in her young life adds complexity to what could easily have become a flattened caricature.

I enjoyed Hawkins’s update of a well-known story, mixing in the 1970s feuding rocker vibe from Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. The ending is, unfortunately, less steady than the rest of the novel. It feels rushed and drawn out at the same time, as though Hawkins struggled to choose between multiple different endings and in the end decided to smash them together in a way that is ultimately unsatisfying.

Overall, I really enjoyed this novel. It has a “slow-burn” pacing that may take some readers a while to really get into, but once you’re in it you’re in it. The Villa will be especially fun for readers familiar with the goings-ons of the Shelleys, Lord Byron, Polidori, and Mary Shelley’s stepsister Claire Clairmont in the summer of 1816.

Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for the eARC!

Thank you netgalley for the opportunity to read this book. I absolutely loved it. I love Rachel Hawkins writing, it’s not a thriller but you can definitely feel like somethings up! I was engaged the whole time and loved the 70s musician/writer vibe. It was amazing book and I recommend!

⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Villa, Rachel Hawkins
January 3, 2023, St.Martin's Press

Thank you @netgalley and @stmartinspress for the #ARC in exchange for the honest review.

The Villa is a book within a book, one of my favorite types of books. The book centers around a Villa in Italy where a rockstar was murdered years before. Friends, who both happen to be authors, Chess and Emily are having a girls vacation at the Villa. Emily finds clues to the truth of what happened all those years before hidden in a book, but with tensions rising with Chess, she wants to be the one to crack the case as well. Nothing is quite what meets the eye in this thrilling mystery filled with murder, sex and betrayal.

@ladyhawkins #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #mystery #thevillarachelhawkins #thevilla #rachelhawkins

Wow, what a book! Rachel Hawkins’ best so far! I loved how Mari’s and Emily’s stories were intertwined. The setting was perfect. I lost two good nights of sleep because I couldn’t put this book down. The only downside for me was Chess. I really couldn’t find any redeeming qualities for her and the ending made me hate her even more. I was truly hoping Emily would triumph in the same way Mari did.

I just finished reading the book "The Villa", by Rachel Hawkins. Thanks to St Martins Press and NetGalley for an advanced copy in return for an honest review. Rachel Hawkins is an excellent writer who has a very steady and well paced writing style. This book is what people call a slow-burn. No real big moments or reveals, but steady progress towards a resolution.
The story is two fold: surrounding an event that occured in an Italian Villa decades ago, which involved a murder and a mystery. Fast forward four decades, and two writer who are also best friends go to the same villa to finish their own books, and one of the writer stumbles upon the murder mystery and decides to delve further into it...while trying to finish the book she is currently writing.
There are many characters in this book which the author brings to life quite vividly. She does an excellent job of breathing personality and urgency into all the characters in the book. I enjoyed both parts of the book: the past and the present.
This story is definately worth reading because it is well written and has consistent action. Even though there are not big moments is has enough action and mystery to entertain the reader, whomever they are.
Happy Reading Everyone!

Oh I loved this book. It's an absolutely delicious and yet heartbreaking story of sisterhood and the ties that bond and break us. Following the dual plot lines, it's not as though you can't predict where it's going - I'll admit to guessing a few of the plot twists, but also being completely blindsided by some of the others (especially the final one). But, guessing it doesn't make a dent in how this book wraps you up in the warm heat of a summer night in Italy and then pushes you out into the cold when you least expect it.

Mari's novel, Lilith Rising, that we get small pieces of, sounds like a fascinating novel that merits her obsession as well as Emily's. The only fault in the book that irked me was the lack of definition of Chess' character in comparison to Mari, Emily, and Lara, who are each complicated and flawed but in ways that you can still empathize with them. I found that much harder to do with Chess, especially when couched with her self-aggrandizing and self-help guru conversations.

I love the subtle nod to Mary Shelley and the writing of Frankenstein that Rachel Hawkins is clearly influenced by. The entire '70s plot line is absolutely captivating, but going into the present is equally mysterious. I just loved it all.

ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.