Em is getting divorced and is stuck on the next book in her cozy mystery series, so when her childhood best friend Chess says they should spend the summer at a villa in Italy Emily hopes it can be a fresh start away from her troubles. The book alternates between their stay at the villa and a group in the 1970s staying at the villa. That group is really paralleled off of the summer Mary Shelley and her group stayed together and she infamously wrote Frankenstein. I really enjoyed this book and read it very quickly because I wanted to know what happened.

Two dramatic storylines where one directly influences the later. What a great drama filled story, and you can positively feel the Italian sun radiant off the pages.

I was so excited to read another Rachel Hawkins book. While somewhat predictable, I enjoyed the fast pace and the characters. This is a quick read and an easy thriller to fall in love with.

I received an ARC of, The Villa by Rachel Hawkins. This was on ok story, I just did not like the language, it took away from the story. I did not care for Chess or Matt at all.

Best friends and authors travel to Italty for inspiration and stumble on a decades old mystery. Will the new story bring them together or tear them apart. This story was great! Told in modern day and flashbacks, it tells the story of an iconic murder in the 1970s that lauched the artistic career of two sisters. Now, two best friends travel to the villa to write for the summer...one a self-help auther and one who writes cozy mysteries. The "murder house" begins to fascinate both of them. But will the house's secrets end thier friendship?

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC.
Wow, I loved this book! It was my first read by Rachel Hawkins, but it certainly will not be my last.
The setting of the Villa was very atmospheric, both in the 70's and today. The rock & roll vibe in the 70's took me back to that time, I could visualize the group quite vividly and felt sorry for the two sisters, they were so out of their depth, until...
The two best friends in the present made me feel uneasy at times, can you love and hate your friend at the same time? But again, the atmosphere was vivid, at times creepy, but totally absorbing.
Great book, highly recommended!

I really enjoyed this! I love Rachel’s Hawkins writing style, as it keeps me engaged. I loved the Wife Upstairs and liked Reckless Girls, and I would place this right between them. I guessed some of the plot twists but it was entertaining enough that I enjoyed being along for the ride. After 3 solid books for me, I will read anything this author writes in the future.

The Villa is fantastic! I would venture to say it is probably Hawkins’ best book to date.

This story has a dual timeline with a three dimensional feel. It takes place in a beautiful Italian Villa situated in the countryside of Umbria. In the 1970’s, a grisly murder took place here, and in the present time, another tragedy will occur.

Mari is a young girl who fancies herself in love with an older, married man. When they are invited to vacation in Italy with Mari’s stepsister and her Rock and Roll love interest, they jump at the chance. The vacation has its usual allure of drugs, sex and rock and roll, but Mari is more interested in digging deeper into past events that occurred at the very same Villa. When a group of artists drink too much, drug too much and fancy being in love with the wrong person, bad things happen.

In the timeline of today, Chess and her best friend, Emily, take a trip to the very same Villa hoping to find inspiration for their newest books. They have a somewhat strained relationship and are getting on each other’s nerves while trying to work through their writer’s blocks. Emily gives up on her book and starts a new one after reading a book she finds in the Villa’s library, “Lilith Rising”, written by Mari, the bestselling author and prior visitor of the Villa.

The two timelines are woven together perfectly and will keep you turning page after page late into the night.

I am giving this book 5 stars. Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC. This is my honest review.

Rachel Hawkins easily solidifies herself as one of my favorite authors with her new book The Villa! Could not put this down and the final two chapters left a chill down my spine! Alternating between the past and the present and telling two stories in one - Hawkins masterfully combines and intertwines the two plots in a suspenseful and chilling web. Her setting descriptions made me feel like I was right alongside our narrator in the sunny, but dark, Villa! Thank you so much for the advance copy - I will be recommending to everyone!!!

Loved this one! This is my 3rd by Rachel Hawkins and it definitely surpassed the others! Two best friends go away to Italy for the summer, wouldn’t you expect some interesting things to happen? Loved reading from so many different views it kept me pulled in until I was done, couldn’t put this one down!

Em and chess have been friend since they were kids, where they would do everything together as adults not so much.Chess as she goes by becomes a star writing self help books, while Em write Cozie mysteries. The two girls
Not very close anymore take a trip to Italy ans stay in the famous villa where a murder took place in 1974.

The murder of pierce sheldon, is the most talked about horror of 1974. When 4 friends stay in a Italy villa for the summer. Mari and Lara are stepsister having leave there life for love and fame, that ends deadly.

The story is told in a dual time line, I was kept guessing though our the book about who did what and often thought things about who did it and what and was always wrong! While at times it was a bit confusing I absolutely love it! The characters were developed properly and kept me interested that I would stay up late just to know what happened!

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC for my honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC.

Damn, this was good.

I read Reckless Girls earlier this year and it was creepy, so wanted to give this a try. I love that Hawkins’ thrillers really do sort of creep up on you, by slowly introducing so many unsettling ideas until the final twist ending.

This one, though… The Villa tells two parallel narratives: one is present day and features Emily, the other is in the 70s and features Mari. I got really invested in Mari’s story, because I am a nerd.

Let me explain: Mari’s story is a retelling of Mary Shelley’s bio - specifically, the personal life events that led to Frankenstein. I read Frankenstein again recently for PhD exam stuff and am on an adaptation kick, so this re-imagination was a coincidence and a pleasant surprise. I loved matching Hawkins’ characters to their historical inspiration.

That being said, you don’t need to know anything about Mary Shelley or Frankenstein to like this. I didn’t quite see the twist at the end, but Hawkins readers might because it’s very on-brand (in a good way!!).

I might even try to teach this some day. Very cool book, 5/5 from me.

Thanks to Netgalley for the change to listen to this audiobook early.

This was just ok. I really liked the concept but it fell flat. It was slow and kind of boring until around 65% and then it finally picked up and got a bit intriguing. I guessed one of the reveals but not the twist.
The characters are supposed to be rock stars and singers and it just didn’t give off that vibe at all. It was actually overall not very atmospheric. They were in Italy in a villa. I would have liked for it to feel more that way.
It was just underwhelming most of the time. I did like it more towards the end and how it ended.
I think I would really prefer this as a show or movie.

Writers writing about writers writing can be a pet peeve of mine, but this book was so beautifully well done. The dual timeliness just worked for me, and I can appreciate the artistry involved in weaving those stories together. Emily is relateable and sympathetic. Chess is remarkably unlikable, yet we've all had that friend we keep returning to despite the flaws and drama. I loved this story and was sad to see it end.

Glad that I had a chance to read this early. An interesting mystery/thriller. Not a huge fan of Chess or the ending. ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

I have always been a huge fan of Rachel Hawkins books. with the last book prior to this one being one of my all time favorites, i had high hopes that this book would be as amazing as the last. I was however disappointed. It was far from a terrible book, but it was something that i expected to be better. The plot twist on Ems behalf was very predictable, and the book ended on a note that i felt was very bland. The writing style per usual of all of her books was wonderful, i just couldn’t get behind the story enough to say that I was really wowed by this particular book.

I’m only a dabbler of mysteries/thrillers, and I would call this a light version of the genre, but that was just fine by me.

Multiple timelines focus on pairs of women who are sisters by choice. In the present day, we follow Emily and Chess as the former escapes a crappy life season to spend the summer in Italy at the latter’s invitation. Despite a decades-long friendship, their relationship is strained and tensions build at The Villa. In the 1974 timeline, it’s sisters-in-law Mari and Lara who spend a summer immersed in sex, drugs, and rock & roll with a trio of men.

Secrets, betrayals, and murder are par for the course, but the most enduring stories center around the interplay of darkness and light in each of us.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for sharing this advance copy!

Welcome to the Villa Aestas, located in Italy with it's beautiful landscape and walls within. A place to escape and get much needed relaxation. A place where tragedy struck fifty years earlier. Writers Emily and Chess have been best friends since childhood and although they haven't been in touch as much in recent years, they decide to take a much needed vacation together at the Villa. Upon arriving Emily is intrigued about the murder that took place decades earlier and the women who came out of it with success beyond their wildest dreams. She starts to suspect there is more to the story than meets the eye and soon feels inspired to create her own masterpiece.

What an absolutely beautiful story. There's something so haunting about this that it stays with you for a long time after finishing. This was written so well that even with all it's inserts from articles, podcasts and dual timelines, it doesn't confuse you but make the story even more intriguing. The past written in this was the perfect imagery of what the life of a rockstar's girlfriend would of been like in the seventies. This is one of the few books that as I'm reading it, I am watching it as a movie in my head. You will hate, love and pity everyone in this but the one thing you will feel for sure is it's perfection. I highly recommend this. Five stars.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC.

Thank you so much to Rachel Hawkins, St. Martin’s Press, and Netgalley for this ARC of The Villa. This book pulled me in from the very beginning. The dual POVs kept me intrigued throughout the entire book. I loved the twists and turns and actually internalized a lot of the character’s feelings. Once I started reading this, I honestly couldn’t stop. It was a great summer read, visualizing the Italian countryside as if it could be in my backyard. The ending of Mari and Emily’s stories independently had my mind blown and I am so thankful I was able to read this book. 5/5 stars! I can’t wait to read more of Hawkins’ books now!

“Houses remember.”

Such a great tagline; I have to wonder if Rachel Hawkins came up with this line and then built not one, but two (or even three, if you count the book-within-a-book “Lilith Rising”) around it. In any case, I’d previously read Hawkins’ two other adult thrillers (“The Wife Upstairs”, which I thought was promising but flawed, and “Reckless Girls”, which I liked a lot, even if the epilogue caught me scratching my head). I feel confident saying that “The Villa” is easily her best thriller so far, building on the strengths of her previous two works in this genre and greatly improving in the areas that were a little weaker.

The plot is fairly simple. Two friends (frenemies?) rent an Italian villa together, which had been the location of a grisly murder in 1974. In present times, the friends are working both on their own books and, to varying degrees, digging into the details behind the 1974 murder. In the 1974 timeline, three musicians, a writer, and a hanger-on/drug dealer spend the summer that the Villa, under the pretense that the two male musicians are working on a collaboration for an album. By the end of the summer, one person ends up dead, two people end up creating great works of art, but not the individuals who were expected to.

I love musician stories from this time period (hello “Almost Famous” and “Daisy Jones and the Six”), so the 1974 timeline really appealed to me. I hope that if this book ever gets made into a movie, they consider casting Sadie Sink as Mari, and I think she’d be perfect for the role.

In the present timeline, Hawkins did a great job capturing the growing tension and distrust between Chess and Em. The “twist” to their relationship did not come as a surprise to me, as I thought it was pretty well telegraphed for a while, but it was heartbreaking to watch Em figure things out.

As a writer, Hawkins’ strengths through all of her books have been her world-building-in-the-real-world and her depiction of frenemy relationships between women. She does not disappoint at all in these aspects with The Villa. I look forward to this book’s release in January 2023 so that I can recommend it to all of my thriller-loving friends.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this book! I was so excited to get approved, and I read the whole thing in two sittings!