Thanks netgalley for the chance to read this book! This is my first book by Rachel Hawkins! The two story lines went and meshed together very well but there was something missing. The ending just didn’t do it for me. The story with the husband.. that was very predictable and I saw it coming. Overall it was an ok book.

A great suspense book. If you love Reckless Girls, you'll love this book too. Two sets of women tied together even though they are decades apart. Very twisty and addictive. The ending shows how well-plotted the novel is. Love the description of Italy too. An excellent book for people who love gothic suspense novels.

Thanks to the publisher for the arc.

Rachel Hawkins has become one of my favorite authors. Each book she writes are simply magic. Her character development and plot lines are intertwined beautifully to the point where I’m up late reading because i simply needs to know what happens next. I adored The Villa and i think fans of her work will too. Thank you NetGalley & the publisher for the ARC in an exchange for an honest review, I’m so grateful.

The Villa by Rachel Hawkins is a dual timeline twisty suspenseful thriller that alternates between Mari in 1974 & Emily in present day. An Italian Villa, Author protagonists. Rock stars. Need I say more? Highly recommend!!!

Rachel Hawkins has done it again. She has spun a tale of intrigue and suspense, along with interwoven relevant flashbacks, to tell a tale of love, loss, and what happens to a lover spurned.

Sadly I wanted to love this more than I did. It was written well I just could not connect with the characters or storyline. However I do believe fans of The Paris Apartment will adore this book and find themselves attached to the story.

Rachel Hawkins delivers another thriller that I could not put down, and The Villa quickly became my favorite of hers to date! Told from two perspectives and two time periods, the story unfolds with twists and complexities that kept me up until I finished it. Emily and Chess are childhood best friends, and their story centers around a summer trip to a villa in Italy - the Villa Aestas - with flashbacks to early times in their friendship. Mari and Lara are stepsisters, and their story centers around a summer trip in 1974 to a villa in Italy - Villa Rosato - with flashbacks to earlier times. There are friendships, betrayals, sex, drugs, and rock & roll, and again - the twists and revelations that happen along the way - will make you not be able to put this book down either. Highly recommend!!

This is the second book I’ve read by Ms. Hawkins. I enjoyed “The Wife Upstairs” very much and gifted it to a family member who also liked it. “The Villa” was equally as good though it was a totally different type of storyline and genre.

The method of combining past and present stories and their alternatives for the people who stayed at Villa Rosa/Aestas was very imaginative and attention-keeping. This, along with the idea of writing a book-within-a-book, was very unique and engaging. I enjoy historical novels and this one reminded me very much of that genre.

Neither of the main characters, Chess and Em, were really likeable. I found weaknesses in each that were a bit aggravating but I continued to read about them nonetheless.

I will definitely recommend this book to those who enjoy travel to Italy as well as 70’s rock and roll performers. Readers who like reading about the writing process will also enjoy this book.

I definitely am a fan of the author’s writing style and will read more of her work.

Thank you to NetGalley, Rachel Hawkins and St. Martin's Press for this eARC.

The Villa by Rachel Hawkins checked all of the boxes for me! It is a hot summer, psychological thriller with a past/present style that was written exceptionally well! I was personally excited to see that the past was set in the summer of 1974 as I was born that year. While I was hooked from the beginning, it is not a book that I quickly skipped through to get to the end. The writing and storylines are so satisfying that reading every page was enjoyable. The relationships between the pairs of women from the past and the present as well as their career trajectories and personal struggles were a refreshing and captivating part of the story as the secrets from the summer at the Villa were unraveled. This is my favorite Rachel Hawkins book, and I highly recommend it. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC!

Thank you to Netgalley, Rachel Hawkins and St. Martin's Press for this eARC. This is my first book by Rachel Hawkins and I will be reading more by her.

The story is about 2 sets of women in different periods of time tied by staying at a Villa in Italy. The book had me captivated from the beginning wanting to know what happened, who did what and how they were all tied together. I was not disappointed, getting to know the characters was fun and finding twists and breadcrumbs along the way kept me intrigued.

Thank you again Rachel Hawkins for a great fun summer read.

The mood in this book is the best part - the eerie undertones to everything really bring it all together. I always enjoy the book within a book technique and I wish I could read more of Lilith Rising as it sounds really intriguing. I hate Chess as a character and the annoying influencers she’s based on, but I think that means Hawkins did her job.

After getting over a sophomore slump, I’m excited for Hawkins’ next novel. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is my first by Rachel Hawkins. It was a quick read. Some mystery and suspense. I was drawn in from the beginning and it had such a strong start. But the end/climax was rushed, too fast (lots of details were skipped right through), and unbelievable. Overall, at 288 pages, there was plenty of time for all this to be more fleshed out.
Thanks NetGalley for the eARC

A well written novel about two sets of two women at two distinct times in an Italian villa. Love does not run smoothly in either time period, and the twists of plot between the two have mirror qualities even while not being reflections at all. One of the earlier twosome leaves a written record that was revealed gradually to one of the later two in a clever manner. I was a captive to the pages—a great read!

This was a lot of fun. A real summer book. I liked the Lilith Rising chapters and the flashbacks to the 1970s. The current day storyline was solid. I like reading about writers and influencers so this hit that! I did wish we learned a little bit more about Chess and her motivations. That seemed a little flat to me. I also felt like the ending was very abrupt but I enjoyed the rest of the book a lot.

Ugh!!! This was so good! Unlike the majority of the book community, I have never read Rachel Hawkins but I loved this one. Nothing gets me like dual POV, alternating timelines, and what I consider an unreliable narrator

Thank you to Netgalley, Rachel Hawkins and St. Martin's Press for this eARC.

I went into this book thinking it was a Gothic mystery, which doesn't really appeal to me, but I enjoy Rachel Hawkins, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Turns out, it's not Gothic at all, but a mystery full of drama, and what's better than that?

There were a couple of different storylines, and timelines, both taking place at the same villa in Italy. The author brought you back and forth between 1974 and the present all while trying to figure out details about a murder that occurred at this villa in 1974. Aside from that, we find 2 friends, Emily and Chess, staying at the villa in the present time, who are both writers and best friends, who are going through some rocky times in their friendship.

I enjoyed this book very much and I couldn't wait to get home from work so I could finish it and find out exactly what happened in 1974 and also what would happen in the present between Emily and Chess.

The ending had a couple of surprises that I definitely never thought would happen and that always makes for a good book.

Rachel Hawkins has redeemed herself with The Villa! I didn’t care for Reckless Girls, but hot damn she came in strong with this one.

I loved the frenemies aspect of our two main characters and the dual, almost parallel timelines was a nice touch. At times I did think that the 1974 story line felt like it dragged on or stalled out, but I was still so invested and had to know how it all came together.

While various sub-plots were predictable, I never once felt like that was a bad thing at all. I enjoyed problem solving and finding the clues to the mystery and putting all the pieces together. I really liked the macabre and dark ways Hawkins wove the two timelines together.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the advance copy!

I read this twisty, fun, sad novel in one day - I couldn’t put it down. Every time I thought I knew what was going to happen, everything shifted and I was left scrambling to catch my brain up from what I was so sure about. I loved this story of two best friends, both writers (but of very different genres); and of two sisters, both artists; and of men who treated them badly, and of the Italian countryside. There is depth here, and drama, and whoa whiplash plot twists. This is a perfect vacation book to just gulp down and then spend some time reflecting on.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the copy of The Villa. This was a compulsive read for me. I liked the characters in the past better than I liked Chess and Emily. Chess and Emily’s relationship was annoying and never rang true for me, and Matt’s demands were over the top. The characters in the past were just quirky enough to be believable and I really enjoyed the musical storyline. This book was full of surprises and that were masterfully revealed. This is my favorite Rachel Hawkins so far!

I had a very visceral reaction to this book and it made me so anxious to read. Which was interesting because for the most part I didn’t have a lot of empathy for the characters, especially the ones from 1974 who seemed to be in a web of their own making. But in present time I wanted Emily to be ok and read the story with such a mix of dread and anticipation.

It’s a fast read which is good because I didn’t want to stay in that headspace. and it felt very different from Reckless Girls which I read earlier this year. It does all come together nicely in the end, but I still feel uneasy about the whole thing.