The Villa, Rachel Hawkins
Pub Date: January 3, 2023

Rachel Hawkins is starting 2023 out strong!

While I’m likely in the minority, I found Reckless Girls a tad Bravo-for-kids. I wanted more. And that is exactly what Hawkins dished out in my fave book of hers - hands down.

The Villa was a twisty unputtdownable interwoven mystery. There is a lot going for Hawkins’ The Villa: multiple timelines with casts of characters that connect in an abstract manner that works; a villa with a lineage of misery and sad happenings - cursed or the perfect backdrop?; and duelling perspectives that make you hate one character and then later find yourself thinking - ok, maybe they are kinda flawsome in a terrible messy but almost understandable way.

Break out the Limoncello and enjoy this psychological minefield!

I’ve previously read The Wife Upstairs and Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins, so I immediately said yes when offered the opportunity to read her latest novel, The Villa. I really enjoy Rachel Hawkins’ style and story concepts, but sadly, I’ve enjoyed each novel less.

The Villa tells the story of a vacation rental in Italy where different groups stayed during different times, but both experiencing trauma and betrayal, ultimately leading to death. In the 70s, a group of aspiring rock-and-rollers stayed at the villa to soak up the sun and reinvigorate their creative juices to write new songs, but the ties between them all were complicated and convoluted, resulting in a violent murder.

Decades later, best friends Chess and Emily stay at the villa for the summer. Both writers, they are also hoping that the beautiful landscape can break through their writers’ block to provide inspiration for their next books. As Emily begins to get sucked into the history of the house, she also starts to unravel what happened in her own life and failed marriage.

Written like a book within a book, the premise of both stories was great and extremely compelling, but the way they were woven together felt disjointed and chaotic. Perhaps some of this can be attributed to reading the advanced copy via Kindle, but the book lacked transition from one story to the next as it constantly alternated back and forth. Then there were lines from a random podcast thrown in that, while could’ve been a cool addition, just threw me off and emphasized how chaotic the novel was.

Without giving away any spoilers, the ending had a sort-of choose-your-own-adventure element where several scenarios were given, and the truth depended on the individual’s involvement and perspective. This was an interesting and different way to end a book, but just not enough to make me love it.

Thank you NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press & Rachel Hawkins for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

Overall I liked this book! I loved the setting and the idea of a cursed house in the Italian countryside and I also liked the dual timelines and multiple POV’s. I think this is my favorite Rachel Hawkins book so far but with that said I did find the twist predictable and without spoilers I did have a real issue with one of the twists and how our MC handled it. The relationship Emily had with her “best friend” (and the relationship Mary had with her step sister in the dual timeline) was so extremely toxic and I really don’t understand why Emily stayed friends with Chess!

Of the two stories, the one set in the 70s was my favorite and I personally would’ve preferred the entire book to be about that story!

This was a solid 3⭐️ for me. Recommend if you’re new to thrillers or are wanting a quick/easy thriller to binge in one sitting!

The Villa by Rachel Hawkins was a good read! I really liked this book and enjoyed the dueling time frames and storylines. I liked the protagonist and I think everyone has a friend like her toxic bestie; which is relatable.... Not exactly what I was expecting, but really enjoyed it a lot. This book has Netflix mini series written all over it!

After greatly enjoying The Wife Upstairs, I was looking forward to The Villa. The plot synopsis sounded intriguing and I like the style in which Hawkins writes. Unfortunately, while I liked the book, it missed the mark for me in quite a few ways.

The character development in this book wasn't strong enough. Since there are two stories being told, there are two sets of characters that the reader needs to connect with. I felt like the story set in the past had more character development than the one set in the present. Mari was the character that I feel the reader gets to know the best. On the other hand, Emily, the main character in the present, is almost forgettable. The reader knows she is an author of cozy books, that her marriage has failed, and that she has suffered from a mysterious illness. Other than a section when Emily and Chess get into an argument, the reader learns very little of who Emily really is. During that spat, the reader is really only getting a sense of who Chess thinks Emily is. Therefore, it was really hard to be drawn into the scenario set in the present.

For the most part, the majority of the characters are unlikable as well. (Is that because they are not developed enough?) It was really hard to get invested in either story because there wasn't really anyone to root for or relate to.

While I liked the plot premise, I felt the execution was lacking. I think trying to tie together Emily's personal issues, the ongoing conflict between Emily and Chess, the story of the murders in the 70s, Lilith Rising, and Lara's album into one big story was just too much. I was half way though the book and found myself asking what should I be focusing on: the murder that happens in the 70s, Emily's mysterious illness; Chess's odd behaviors, or what?

Finally, I thought the ending was not plausible. No spoilers but I felt things were very unlikely to work out the way they did.

With all of that said, I do enjoy how Hawkins writes. I liked the format of this book and I enjoyed how the story went from past to present and tried to pull both stories together into a cohesive plot. While I didn't love this book, I would still recommend that readers give Hawkins books a try!

This is my third Rachel Hawkins, and I have yet to be disappointed by any of her books. The Villa might be my favorite! Parts of it felt a little bit like a murdery Daisy Jones and the Six. If you were a fan of her other work, Reckless Girls and The Wife Upstairs, then I think you will enjoy this one as well. 
Her books are all very fast-paced and binge-able. While it wasn't super thrilling, The Villa was suspenseful and I was really interested in seeing what happened. I love books that involve famous people and celebrity life, so this was a fun one to get into. 
Four stars and I will for sure read all of her future work.

3.5/5 stars

This book is gothic suspense and follows a dual timeline.

In the present best friends Emily and Chess are spending the summer in Italy at a villa where a murder took place. In the past Mari, Pierce, Noel and Lara spend a summer at that same villa in the 70s.

This book has very long chapters. And to me it did not get really interesting until the end.

What I liked. The Italian setting and the villa. The friendship. The writing. Both Emily and Chess are writers. That was my favorite part of the story.

I definitely preferred the present storyline. There were times when I enjoyed finding things from the past that connected to the present. But to me there was way too much about the past. And it made this book super slow at times.

The 1970s part was inspired by Mary Shelley spending the summer at Lake Geneva with Lord Byron. But I did not know anything about that and I just wasn't really invested in the 1970s timeline.

As mentioned the book did get really interesting towards the end. Everything to do with Emily and Chess was super fascinating. I enjoyed their friendship and found this aspect of the story to be really good. Overall it was an interesting read.

I really enjoyed The Wife Upstairs and Reckless Girls so of course I had to add this. With blurbs about The Villa being a gothic suspense thriller (set at an Italian villa across two time periods) with sinister acts and long-buried secrets.. and that it is inspired by Percy & Mary Shelley’s infamous visit with Lord Byron at a castle, the Manson murders and Fleetwood Mac. Yes please!

Author Emily Sheridan is behind writing her latest book in a cozy mystery series. She’s suffering from writers block due to ill health and (unfortunately) her series love interest is inspired by her soon to be ex-husband. Their divorce process has been h*** to say the least. Her childhood best friend Chess suggests they spend R+R at an Italian villa together to reconnect. Chess is an author too but they’ve drifted apart after Chess’s big success in writing self-help books. While there, Emily gets caught up investigating the mystery of an infamous 1974 murder that happened in that same villa. She also knows one of the girls (Mari) went on to write a bestselling horror novel, and the other girl (Lana) wrote/performed/released the greatest solo album of that era. How did they become so successful after living through something so gruesome?

Traveling back to the 1974.. we have 19 year old Mari’s POV. Noel Gordon, a notorious rock star, invites Mari’s step-sister Lana to his Italian vacation villa, also taking along Mari and Mari’s musician boyfriend Pierce Sheldon (they’re also introduced to a surprise guest on arrival). Jumping at the opportunity to go, Mari imagines it as an artist retreat where they’ll all be creating together. Unfortunately.. it doesn’t turn out to be that.

Don’t let the sunny vacation destination fool you. This turned into quite the chilling story giving me all the spine tingling sensations that something foreboding from the past was going to present itself.. again.. only now to Emily and Chess. There’s a lot playing out between the two friends with their loving and devoted, yet thorny, complicated relationship.. giving you an uneasy feeling. You know something bad is hanging there on the perimeter.. what it is and when it will happen kept me on the edge of my seat. I was completely engrossed in finding out. There’s much more to this story playing out in both timelines concerning misogyny, tangled web relationships, jealousy, and competition, all intermixed with media throughout the book. And what a shocker of an ending! This is one heck of an entertaining story within a story. Fascinating for sure!!! 4.5 stars — Pub. 1/3/23

Much thanks to the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the advanced copy of The Villa by Rachel Hawkins.

Set in an Italian villa with a dark history, The Villa is a suspenseful and dark novel. It has you questioning friendship, who you trust, and who you might willingly betray. The book centers on Emily and Chess, friends since childhood. Their friendship has always been strained, with levels of distrust even from when they were young. And as the reader, you also question their friendship and intentions throughout the entire book, which adds to the building tension and paranoia.

The book intertwines Emily's time at the villa in present day, and Mari's time there in 1974. Mari, her step sister, her boyfriend Pierce, and rock star Noel spend a summer at the villa. Their stay was consumed with alcohol, drugs, music, lies, fights, and eventually murder. And their horrific story lives on in the horror novel Mari writes and the platinum album step sister Lara creates. The novel and album contain clues and hints to what happened that summer, and Emily pieces those clues together while uncovering even more secrets about her own life and time at the villa.

This book was dark, tense, and had you questioning motives and intentions throughout the entire book. It is a dual pov between present day Emily and 1974 Mari. My main complaint was that there were times where the book read too slowly. It has the thriller elements, but lacked some of the suspenseful, edge-of-your-seat moments I craved. I would get a little bored with one character and their pov, but luckily then it would switch to the other pov, which did help move the story along. And of course, things picked up nicely near the end of the book.

This was my first Rachel Hawkins read and I would not hesitate to give another one of her books a try!

This story follows two different timelines. In present day we are with self-help guru Chess and cozy mystery author Emily, lifelong best friends, who decide to take a girls trip to Villa Aestas in Italy where in the 70s a rock star was bludgeoned to death.

In the 70s we follow Mari and her step sister Lara who visit the Villa, then Villa Rosato, with the famous Noel and Mari’s boyfriend and rocker wannabe Pierce. What is meant to be an inspiring summer holiday turns into a drug fueled stay where tensions are high and boundaries are crossed.

I enjoyed the vibe, the story held my attention, and I liked bits of Mari’s horror novel being thrown in there. But, I did feel the book was lacking. Some of the plot felt under developed and I was left with so many questions. I would have liked to see this book be another hundred pages and take the time to better lay out the plot, and I would have enjoyed more of Mari’s Lilith Rising.

While The Villa was full of toxic relationships, mystery, and had decent pacing, it didn’t feel very thrillery and none of the twists were very surprising.

⭐️⭐️💫


⭐️⭐️💫

Let me state at the outset that I will probably be in the minority with this review. When I first read the description, I thought it sounded like me personal brand of catnip. A dual timeline, secrets from the past affecting the present, a Gothic house with a history and struggling writers. Unfortunately it turned out to be a domestic thriller, and that is NOT a genre I enjoy. Psychological thrillers? All day every day. Domestic thrillers? Not so much.

WHAT WORKED FOR ME

Of the two timelines, I much preferred the one from the past. This was merely because we are able to see at least some the inner workings of Mari’s mind and the foundations of Lilith Rising. It’s in the past timeline that the Gothic overtones are most present. This was a fast paced book, and there were some phrases and paragraphs that I thought were beautifully well done.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME

Pretty much everything else. This was a very sordid book. Infidelity features PROMINENTLY for most of the characters. People are seemingly sleeping with everyone except the person they should be. Mari and Pierce have a toxic relationship as do both Emily and Matt and Emily and Chess. What starts for both timelines as a holiday to find themselves and rediscover love for their art, rapidly declines into a convoluted and predictable domestic drama. Not one of these character is likable.

It’s clear that the reader is meant to have a sympathy for both Emily and Mari, but I don’t. We’re clearly supposed to root for them, but they are weak and passive characters with no agency, and very little self-respect. They are held up as good women ruined by me, and I’m sorry, I don’t buy it.

There are choices made in this novel that left me actively angry. I have grown increasingly tired of the “all men in a novel must be forcible” narrative and it is here in spades. Not one decent male character. And the ending was not only unbelievable, but atrocious. I can’t condone any of the decisions made. By anyone.

CONCLUSION

I am not the intended audience for this book. I dislike domestic thrillers intensely, because cheating always plays such a huge role. You could spot most major twists coming a mile away, and the “shocking twist” in the very last chapter ruins any good there may have been in the story. The characters are awful, both to themselves and to each other. Sordid, messy, and petty are the best words I have to use for it. Overall it just didn’t work for me, but many others will love it.

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martins for a free copy in exchange for a free and host review.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of The VIlla by Rachel Hawkins. I absolutely flew through this book. So much action and so much mystery to take in, I just couldn't put it down. Hawkins keeps you on your toes with this one. Three different stories are intwined in this one and the way all the pieces are woven together is masterful. I love all the parrallelisms of the storlylines and how Hawkins reveals the pieces a little at a time; that is the part that really keep you wondering if you know what is going to happen next (I was usually wrong)! Chess and Em are stuck together forever so that they can keep each others secrets.

“The Villa” is more of a literary mystery that follows two female author best friends as they visit a villa with a history of murder. The start had me interested, but the historical flashbacks just didn’t do it for me. It was a little hard to understand the historical drama that the story was being linked to and I thought the present day mystery ended rather abruptly. It was an okay book for me, but overall, I wasn’t left very satisfied with the story. 3 stars ⭐️. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advanced copy for review.

The Villa is another excellent read from Rachel Hawkins. Emily is a writer, and her best friend Chess is also a writer, albeit more famous. Emily is going through a messy divorce and is late with her next book when Chess invites her to vacation in Italy for the summer, and they will both work on their writing. The villa they will be staying is home to a famous murder of a famous singer. The book alternates to the past in 1974 when Mari, her sister Lara, her older, married boyfriend, Pierce, a rocker, and some friends that have stayed in this home on vacation. It delves into the relationship between Mari, Lara, and Pierce, and details the events leading up to that tragic night. When Emily discovers some writings of Mari in the villa, Emily becomes obsessed with finding out what happened that night and begins to focus on telling that story.

An excellent read, fast paced, with a couple of shocking twists at the end!

Captivated by the story I neglected to make any notes or highlights so suffice it to say I liked it. From the first words “Houses Remember” I was in. Told in multiple timelines, the story goes from sex, drugs, rock and roll, to what that combination naturally conjures. In the summer of 1974, at an Italian Villa in Orvieto, music is being made, a book is being written, the players are exchanging ideas and partners. The mood is easy and then it isn’t and then it is deadly.

In the present, best friends very famous Chess Chandler and less well known Emily Sheridan, both writers, plan to spend a summer at an Italian Villa in Orvieto which happens to be a Murder House. The mood is easy and then it isn’t and then it is deadly.

The present was less interesting to me but necessary to unravel what really happened in the summer of 1974. But did it? There are choices and versions - which was it ? Love the questions raised and left. Thank you St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for a copy.

This was an “okay” thriller, but felt predictable. One of the twists I predicted early on, and it made the rest of the story drag quite a bit.

Review is included in link that is listed here and attached: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4827108379

My second book by Rachel Hawkins and I loved it. I loved the setting of The Villa, the two timelines, the relationship between Chess and Emily. I found myself gasping at the twists and turns and rooting for Emily to make the right decisions. Also thankful to NOT have a friend like Chess or sister like Lara!
Great book and I’m looking forward to her next one.

The Villa A Novel by Rachel Hawkins @ladyhawkins released this week! I was given a complimentary copy to read and review and finally finished it up this week. Once I started it, I could not put it down. I devoured it in 2 days. It was a page turner. The book follows 2 time lines with the main characters at an Italian Villa that was the scene of a murder in the 70's as well as some other occurrences in the past centuries which has lead to some suspicions and stories about the house. I was riveted by both stories. I had guessed part of it but the "why" behind it was a huge twist and then there was another twist I was not expecting. I can't wait for more people to get their hands on this one because I need to talk about it!

Recommend if you enjoy mysteries and domestic thrillers!

The Villa is a thriller/mystery/drama told around two timelines. Emily is the present day main character who is a popular cozy mystery writer also going through a divorce with an ex husband that wants everything she has worked for. Emily’s childhood friend Chess has remade herself as a self help guru and offers Emily a summer away at an Italian Villa to get away from reality and focus on her writing.

This is no ordinary Villa though, there was a murder at this house in the mid seventies with some semi famous people involved. This timeline is told by Mari, famous writer of a very popular thriller novel published just after the tragedy at the Villa. Mari, her step sister Lara (also a famous recording artist, but not until AFTER the Villa), Mari’s musical boyfriend Pierce and a famous down and out rock star are spending the summer together in Italy. This timeline has a drugs, sex and rock and roll vibe that really contributes to the overall tragedy and storyline.

Emily feels a connection with Mari when she gets to the Villa and begins researching what really happened that summer so long ago. Do houses remember? Can they be unlucky and prone to tragedy?

I enjoyed both timelines and convergence of the stories. This was a super quick read for me! Easy to get into and kept me hooked throughout. I highly recommend adding this to your 2023 TBR.