Emily’s life has suddenly started falling apart. Her career as a cozy mystery author has stalled, she is having health issues, and her husband, Matt, has left her after seven years of marriage. Alternatively, Emily’s lifelong best friend, Chess, has a thriving career writing self-help books and being a social media influencer. While Emily is floundering, Chess extends an invitation for the two of them to spend the summer together in Italy at the luxurious Villa Aestas. Emily sees this as an opportunity to get her life back on track and complete the next book.. When she arrives, she is quickly swept up in the mystery of a murder that occurred in the villa during 1974. Determined to learn more about the villa’s dark past, Emily begins digging and finds surprises that she could have never seen coming. As tensions at the villa increase between Emily and Chess, Emily must decide what concessions she is willing to make and if their friendship is worth continuing.

The story is told from the point of view of Emily (present) and Mari (past). It also contains excerpts from true crime podcasts / articles which I found to be a nice touch to fill in the back story. I struggled wa bit with the past characters point of views and setting but that’s honestly just a personnel preferable. I found myself having a hard time putting this book down. I felt like both characters were so relatable and I was rooting for them the entire time. One thing i know why Hawkins is great on the character delopment? My one gripe of the book is Chess! I hated her so much at times and can’t believe that Emily could put up with her. But that just means the author did her job. It was a pleasure to read this book and Rachel Hawkins will definitely remain on my always read list :
Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve tried reading this author a few times now and something just doesn’t jive for me. Don’t let that stop you though as I’ve seen great reviews for this one. Read this if you like reading before and now and trying to figure out a mystery that happened in this villa that two friends rented.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for my arc in exchange for an honest review.

Publish date: January 3, 2023

Em, a writer, has recently split from her husband, Matt, who wants a divorce and part of Em’s earnings from her book series. Em has been sick and her next book has been well overdue.

Em’s best friend, Chess, is a very successful self help writer, who decides to take Em on a trip to an Italian villa. This villa is beautiful, but is known for a murder that happened in the 70s.

Mari and her step sister, Lara, were at the villa when the murder happened. Mari wrote a book and Lara wrote songs that leave clues to what really happened that night of the murder.

This book was AMAZING! Like seriously, amazing. It was my first book from this author and now I can’t wait to read more from her!

This was by far Hawkins’ best book. It was a fun mix of then-vs-now, what is the REAL story, and girlfriends just trying to keep a friendship alive in adulthood.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A tightly written book about one Italian villa in two different timelines. The characters were well written and I enjoyed reading the past and the present chapters, along with the news stories and lyrics, etc that filled out the book

Chess Chandler is the fictional Rachel Hollis right?

I enjoyed this more than I originally thought I would. I was expecting a quick domestic thriller and it delivered that with a hint of 1970s true crime story.

There were times I enjoyed the 70s timeline a lot more than the present day one, but I can absolutely see why the present day was included. Really enjoyed the pay off and twists that happened in the present day timeline (although I partially guessed one twist)

I also really enjoyed the multi media aspect with the lyrics, stories, interviews, etc. interspersed throughout.

Plus it made me really want to vacation in Italy asap.

Will definitely be reading more from Rachel Hawkins

This book really takes you on a wild ride. At first, I was not as into the plot and characters as much as I wanted to be. About halfway through though, I began to really enjoy it.

This book has a dual timeline, which I really loved! Emily and Chess are childhood friends who decide to spend time during the summer at an Italian Villa. We follow their story as Emily discovers there is more to the house and the history of this villa than she initially knew. As she discovers more secrets, tension between her and Chess arise.

We also get to follow another character, Mari, during 1974, where we get to see the events that took place before the murder at Villa Aestas. I liked this timeline as well and thought it added so much to the mystery of the book! I absolutely loved the quote “Houses remember.”

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I did enjoy the second half better, but I also guessed one of the plot twists so that was a little underwhelming. This book was very atmospheric when describing the villa and I loved reading about the setting in Italy! I will read more by Rachel Hawkins in the future!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!

I absolutely love a murder house so I was so excited to get an eARC for this one. The story has two time lines. In the present day we have Emily, a writer, who has been invited to Italy by her “best friend” Chess Chandler. Chess Chandler is a self help guru and insufferable. Emily is currently going through a divorce, has terrible writers block, no money, and recently got over a mysterious illness. That all changed when she discovers the history of the Villa Aestas, the connection between it and Lilith Rising, and Mari’s journal from the fateful summer of 1974.

Which brings us to our second timeline. The summer of 1974 from Mari’s perspective. She, her stepsister Lara, and Mari's boyfriend (but also occasionally Lara's lover) Pierce head off to Italy to meet Noel, a rockstar, to make music and memories. During this time, Lara starts making music that eventually becomes a world wide known album, Aestas, and Mari ends up writing a best seller, Lilith Rising. You learn fairly early that their summer ends with the murder of Pierce. This timeline follows their struggles and gives us some backstory to Mari and Lara, their complicated relationship, and the bond of sisters.

The big question is will our currently summer end in murder? I liked the two timelines and the slow burn this book gave me. And I saw one twist but another left me like 😲. Overall, I enjoyed this book more than The Wife Upstairs and finished it in about 24 hours. Be looking for this one to hit bookshelves January 3, 2023!

Thank you to Netgalley, Rachel Hawkins, and St. Martins press for the eARC in exchange for my honest review!

I am a new fan of Rachel Hawkins. I really liked how this story was told in two timelines. You have Emily is present day and you have the story of Mari and the villa the summer of 1974. It was a unique approach with a story within a story.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Summary: The novel The Villa gives the reader two stories, both of which are not what they seem. We have our present day writer who is down on her luck and spending more time with her best friend who she harbors some resentment for in one of the stories. The other focuses on a writer living in the 1970’s in the same house with a similar relationship with her sister.

The second I read the description of the novel I knew it was going to be interesting. I loved the parallel of Mari and Lara’s relationship compared to Emily and Chess’s. I could not stop reading I was so interested in finding out what happened. There were some points I found frustrating-especially everything to do with Matt, but the twist in the end will have me thinking about this novel for a very long time.

I really and truly enjoy Hawkins' books. Loved this one, and felt connected to all of the characters, in both time-lines.

Loved how she tied the two stories together, and was surprised by the ending.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this!
However I didn’t finish it. For me im a sucker for a fun colorful cover which this one nailed it. But as I continued to read the book I was bored. Very long chapters and it just wasn’t doing it for me. I really wanted to love it.

"Heroine is villain, villain is victim, and that colors everything that comes before in a new light."

Two side-by-side stories connected by women seemingly controlled by the men they’ve chosen to fill their lives. Rachel Hawkins draws the connecting dots between the stories and the result is women who make a choice to write their own narrative and leave lasting legacies.

Emily and Chess are childhood best friends. There’s a tension and jealousy they carry. In adulthood they reconnect and vacation at Villa Aestas in Italy. This becomes the muse for Emily’s writing, which Chess injects herself in to.

Mari and Lara are step sisters coming of age in 1970’s London. They follow male musicians to Italy to the same villa visited later by Emily and Chess. To the self-centered men, they are unimportant. But both women find inspiration for their later success in this setting. Without sending out spoilers, there’s a murder that becomes the central focus for both sets of women’s futures.

There are surprises and twists to both stories that I didn’t see coming. None of the characters are particularly likable or sympathetic. Their jealousy and initial dependency on the men in their lives is tiring. But, by the end of the book, they owned their own destiny.

Thank you to Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Em is feeling stuck, stuck in her job, her love life, her health, etc. Her lifelong best friend Chess, is a successful self-help guru and is the opposite of stuck. Upon meeting up for lunch and reconnecting, Chess invites Em to stay with her in an old Villa. But this isn't any old Villa, this Villa was the sight of a semi-famous murder of a musician in the 70's. Two women who were at the Villa at the time of the murder went on to become successful, one as a singer and one as a writer. As the story goes on, Em is interested and finds inspiration in the Villa's history, especially regarding the time of the murder and the story of Mari, the writer. Interestingly enough, Mari's famous horror story has many parallels to the real life murder that occurred. As Em continues to search for clues about what really happened, she's shocked at what she finds.

I really enjoyed this! I wish the story was a tad longer at times. The dual POVs between Em and Mari worked in this. However, I will say, this wasn't a thriller. This had very little thrill or even mystery as you do know that a murder occurred at the Villa. It was a tad suspenseful and there were some twists (the big one confused me a bit) but it wasn't thrilling. Chess wasn't the most likeable character, so it was hard to root for her and her and Em
's friendship, especially at the end. I wasn't thrilled with the ending, but it did make sense. I wanted more for Em. This story was interesting and a good read! The setting was lovely and so nice to read about. I thought the dynamics between the characters in the past were interesting but I wish there was more to that. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the free preview in exchange for an honest review.

Although it had some interesting elements, this thriller was unfortunately a little bit underwhelming.
The setup is a dual timeline- one present and one in the 1970s- centering around one Italian villa. In the present, Emily (a mystery author) is going on a summer vacation to Italy with her old friend Chess. They are staying in a famous villa known for a murder that took place there in the 1970s. In the past, we see the story of that death and the events leading up to it.
The present timeline feels like a friendship drama more than anything, and the past is very sex/drugs/rock-'n'-roll since the people staying in the villa are various types of artists. Honestly it reminded me a little bit of Daisy Jones and the Six!
One of the past characters wrote a book based on her experience there, and Emily in the present reads portions of that book, creating a story-within-a-story effect.
I was excited about the concept of this one but found that the actual story didn't engage me very much. The characters weren't likeable and I didn't feel like the plot was as gripping as it seemed in the synopsis. I probably wouldn't recommend this for most readers as there are better creepy house stories.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

After reading The Wife Upstairs earlier this year, I am definitely a fan of Rachel Hawkins (I missed Reckless Girls but look forward to reading it soon) so I was excited to receive an ARC of her upcoming novel The Villa - many thanks to St. Martin's, one of my favorite publishers, for the advanced copy! I enjoyed the dual timelines here and the conflicts taking place within both - we have Emily and her best friend Chess in present day and Mari, her stepsister Laura and partner Pierce in 1974, all staying in the same Italian villa. I loved that the connecting thread between both timelines was a book (Lilith Rising, written by Mari during her stay at the villa). The relationships here are complicated and I felt so anxious about it all that I flew through the back half of the book in one Saturday afternoon. I really like Rachel Hawkin's writing - she occupies a space between thriller, drama and mystery that I really enjoy and her characters are always fleshed out and imperfect. I look forward to catching up on Reckless Girls soon and can't wait for The Villa to arrive in 2023.

I started my Rachel Hawkins journey with The Good Wife and have read each subsequent book. This one, by far, is my favorite. While it doesn’t have the same sense of suspense as her previous books, it has a very, very clever ending. Her very developed writing substitutes for the need for a suspenseful, “girl gets cornered with a murderer and has to make her way out of it.” I think this is her best writing yet and her best plot so far.
Thank you Netgalley for a ARC.

Emily and Chess have been friends all throughout their lives, and are off on an adventure to Italy together to re-boost their friendship as well as spend some time with their own individual writing projects. The villa that they stay at in Italy is well known for a mystery - and murder - that occurred there in 1974. The story does flip to that time period as well, so help us become more familiar with rock star Noel, musician Pierce, Pierce's girlfriend Mari, and her stepsister Lara. The four of them have an interesting connection.

While Emily and Chess are staying in the villa, Emily's curiosity gets the best of her and she starts to dig in to the history of the home and the mystery that occurred in that past summer.
It took me until halfway through the book to feel a hook with some intrigue, and there is a nice mystery line interwoven between the two time periods.

“She had forgotten, as we all do, that beautiful things can contain their own darkness.”

I absolutely loved this book and the suspense it brought! It was not at all what I expected going into it. I enjoyed The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins, but oh my goodness I enjoyed this even more.

The book is dual time frame revolving within past and present at The Villa Aestas in Italy. The characters in the past Mari and Lara are stepsisters in the crazy triangle with Mari’s boyfriend Pierce. Then there is Noel and Johnnie who also become part of their lives at The Villa. Oh, what a twisted story that becomes. I did not expect the twists! *Mind blown!*

As for the present day there are the best friends Emily and Chess and them dealing with Matt which is Emily’s soon to be ex husband. The twist with them was pretty mind blowing as well.

The beginning was a bit slow paced for myself, but had to be so you can understand the characters and setting more and to lead up to the main events that take place. I loved the suspense it brought and the twists! I couldn’t hardly put the book down.

Thank you so much NetGalley and Rachel Hawkins for allowing me a copy of the eARC.