Okay I’m not gonna lie I was worried going into this book! The 2 previous Rachel Hawkins “thrillers” weren’t for me. I wanted to give her one last try so I picked this bc honestly that cover did it for me 🥰

BUT I’m happy to report I actually really enjoyed this book! There’s something about multiple perspectives and multiple timelines that I really enjoy. I liked that we got to follow writers along their writing journey. Emily discovering life after her marriage/life fell apart was a nice journey to follow. I felt like maybe some of the writer struggles that Emily was speaking about with wanting to switch from cozies to more thrillers felt like self insertion with Rachel Hawkins (not confirmed but I can see the parallels)

I really loved the past timeline. I was INVESTED in Mari’s life. I loved getting to see the development from living with her boyfriend and sister to this extravagant Italian villa. The rock n roll lifestyle with Noel and Pierce was fun to read about. I was just so invested in the past timeline that when we switched back to the current time I wasn’t as invested. Don’t get me wrong I still cared but I could see who the other woman was from page one so I didn’t need the build up there but that’s more personal preference.

My one complaint was the ending. I don’t understand what she was trying to do. Like why spend the whole book letting us read these journals only to find out they are fake?? I mean we could have just left that out or maybe gave it a more ambiguous ending that would leave us questioning if what we read was true or not. But having the entry to say okay no just kidding everything I said was a lie? I don’t know it just didn’t sit right with me.

Also chess is the worst and im upset that Emily’s book was “co-written” with her. that really annoyed me!!

Emily Sheridan and Chess Chandler have been friends since elementary school. Both are writers: Emily writes cozy mysteries while Chess writes self-help books. Following a bad period in Emily's life, Chess suggests they spend the summer at a villa in Italy where both can work on their writing. At first, the house appears to be the perfect place to spend the summer. But when Emily learns that a murder took place at the villa 50 years earlier, she begins to dig deeper into the story.
There are two timelines here, set 50 years apart, that mirror each other to a certain extent. I figured out the plot about a third of the way into the story. But there are some unexpected twists as well as two different endings, and the reader is left wondering about the truth. Quite a few of the characters are unlikeable so it didn't bother me when some of them died. This is enjoyable escape reading that is perfect for vacation, and anyone who reads suspense or psychological fiction will be drawn into the story.

This book was such a trip and I could NOT put it down. I would almost consider this a sunny-gothic thriller (is that even a thing?) because there’s so many fun charming elements to the setting and yet so much darkness looming in every corner. The dual timelines between the events of the past and those of the present were so much fun. I loved seeing how the story unfolded and came together as well as the parallels between the two. Is the villa itself influence dark events or is it just the tragic location of history repeating itself?

The one thing I hate loved about the book were all toxic relationships. Literally, every single relationship in this book is highly toxic and at times kind of triggering. I found myself just wanting to scream at Chessie as she was probably the most unsufferable character.

The story overall was kind of predictable but I thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless. If you’re looking for a quick, entertaining read or are starting to compile your vacation TBRs, I highly recommend adding this one to your list.

A book about a woman writing a book about a woman who wrote a book. I really enjoyed the book and couldn’t put it down the second half. I was surprised by the ending but also not at the same time. The main characters relationships began to mirror those she was writing about or was it just all in the main characters head… the real story we find out was never told.

Chess and Emily were best friends since elementary school but as their lives changed, so did their friendship. They no longer saw each other as much so they decided to abruptly take a trip to the Villa Aestas in Italy where they would both work on their careers. The villa was essentially a murder house back in the 70’s filled with sex, drugs and rock & roll. If that interests you then this might be your book.

The dual POV had me almost immediately uninterested. I prefer a present day telling of a book regardless of the genre. I was enjoying the POV of Emily and Chess but the rest was just painstakingly hard to get through, keeping in mind I understood it was crucial to the plot.

I usually love Rachel Hawkins and have rated her other books highly. Like I said, I think the dual POV really hindered my enjoyment. I still look forward to seeing more from the author in the future!

Emily is stuck. Her husband left her, she's recovering from illness, and she just can't write her latest novel. But when her best friend for life invites her to visit a villa in Italy for the summer, she jumps at the chance to get away and finish her book. Once she arrives, she becomes obsessed with the home's history - particularly a crime nearly 50 years ago - involving rock n roll stars, their lovers, and a tragic death. How much do both of these parties - decades apart - have in common?
What I liked most about the book was how it was told - having two different timelines shared side-by-side. The book would have had a completely different feel if we learned everything about the crime in the 1970s before being told the current story of Emily and Chess. By doing it this way, leaving the readers in the dark about what led to the murder, there was a build up of suspense and anticipation. The readers were forced to be patient.
I also enjoyed comparing the characters - Emily's husband Matt to Mari's boyfriend Pierce, Lara to Chess, and Mari to Emily. It was fun finding these similarities and differences despite how different the times were.
Overall, I did not love this novel. It was interesting enough to read and I saw a lot of great aspects in it, but it was not my favorite and I'm not entirely sure why. It felt like it was missing something. I found that the story was not scary, at all. Personally, I wish there were more thrills and fright involved. In the story, Mari writes a horror novel, so I thought that The Villa would reflect more of that feel than what it did. The story felt like it was just relaying a piece of history - telling a story as it was. I felt like I was reading a historical fiction or a slice of life instead of a mystery/thriller. I suppose the feel of the book was not what I anticipated.
Nevertheless, the story did ask some important questions to the readers. What does it mean to be free? What does an unhealthy relationship look like - be it family, friends, or lovers? When should you walk away? The readers are shown examples of this and are left asking these questions to themselves. Villa Rosato is just a house in Italy. It's the people inside it, the memories that are a mix of the best and the worst of times, that are important. It's not the place. It's the people and the freedom they find inside it's walls.
I would still recommend this book to others. I did enjoy it in ways, and I'm sure many others will like it most than myself. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes stories about vacation rentals, torn relationships, and true crime.

I really enjoyed the characters of this story and reading their friendship. I am a Paula Hawkins fan and I really wanted to love this one, however this book wasn’t for me. I couldn’t follow the story line.
I had to power through it just to finish it.

The characters are unlikable, and some of the relationships aren't fully fleshed out. However, the intertwining of two timelines is skillfully done. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone looking for a true thriller. It's much slower and there's not a lot of suspense. I'd recommend it to someone looking more for mystery. The ending is a bit muddled and unsatisfying in my opinion, but I can see how fans of the author's other titles would enjoy it.

The low ranking is not a reflection of the work itself, but rather speaks to the fact that I selected other books over this title.

I think this was my favorite Rachel Hawkins book so far! I loved the setting and the main character. But not so much the main supporting character (although I got her motivations at the end, I guess). Overall, enjoyed it much more than Reckless Girls!

Rachel Hawkins takes readers on a mysterious journey asking them to reconsider trust and friendship as Emily and Chess navigate the history behind an Italian villa. The book reads well and the narrative structure truly works for Hawkins’ content, and her twists and turns were not predictable like many one-off mystery entries.

Emily and Chess must figure out how to cross the bridge of their friendship as they both have battled through their 20s. Chess, a motivational writer who has pumped out successful self-help books, invites Emily to Villa Aestas for a girls trip of unusual proportions. The Villa played a role in music history, horror history, as well as being famed for a high-profile murder that took place all at the same time. Emily and Chess have much to work through as they both discover what comes next in their 30s hoping this friends trip does not end like the one that inspired the history behind the villa.

I enjoyed The Villa and felt that readers will really latch onto the dual plot lines. While readers are supposed to empathize with Emily, I often found myself expecting less of our protagonist. Chess was an interesting character— one of which I could see being a modern-day reflection of influencer society and the self-help spokesperson that seems to need help herself.

The storyline was engaging, and I didn’t see some of the twists coming. However, the ending wrapped things up much too quickly for my own taste. I felt like I have read this same ending before and wasn’t too thrilled with that feeling coming from mystery.

My Rating: 3 / 5 Stars

This was a fun quick read for me. Did I like the characters? Well, not so much, but Hawkins kept the story within a story moving right along and I was hooked. Plus, “ Houses Remember”. I’m always a sucker for a story set in a beautiful old house ( Trained by Nancy Drew 🤣).
Recommended for Hawkins fans.

The Villa carries about three storylines with in story. In modern day; Chess, also known as Jessica, is a highly successful author of self-help books. Her best friend from childhood is Emily and she has been invited to spend the summer with Chess at a beautiful Italian Villa, albeit one with a tragic history.
Emily has been dealing with health issues and then a split with her husband, He is harassing Emily to find out when her last book in series will be written because he, of course, feels entitled to some of her advance and money from the book.
The famous group was at this house in 1974, the main character was Noel Gordon a very famous rocker. He had invited step-sisters Mari and Lara along with Pierce, Mari's boyfriend. Noel and Pierre are both rockers who have plans to collaborate on music in London in the studio come January, They just don't seem to spend much time on their music. Emily gets really hooked on listening to podcasts and keeping up on the latest intel on the murder from 1974.

Female empowerment Seems to be a popular theme these days. The Villa does it right, kind of a slow reconning.
There was a lot of crossover between timelines; Emily has made the discovery of some letters written by Mari back in 1974 and she is working on book based on them. Chess wants a piece of the action

It took me a bit to get into this book, but I kept going because I was curious about what was going to happen. I was a bit let down by the ending as I feel a better resolution would have been if they found out that the letters weren't actually real events. There were just a lot of things in this book that I wish had played out differently for a more interesting story line, which is why I can only give it 3 stars.

I really enjoyed reading The Villa! I loved how it went back and forth from the events in 1974 that occurred within the villa to what was happening in present time in the same setting and how the characters of the past paralleled with the characters of the present. It has a decent twist, as well! I would definitely recommend giving this book a try.

I enjoyed The Villa by Rachel Hawkins tremendously it was a great journey through two different stories and time periods.

Two best friends from childhood who have both grown up to be authors travel to a villa in Italy for inspiration.
They find when they get their a mysterious murder that took place there at the villa in the 1970s that seemed to never seemed resolved. This seemed to intrigue them both to research it more.

If you loved Rachel Hawkins other books as well so I think you should love this as well.
I would to show my appreciation to St Martin's Press and Netgalley for giving me this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Rachel Hawkins has done it again. She knows how to take you on a journey with so many twists and turns. There are two different stories happening at two different time periods that intertwine beautifully. This is a must read for any fan of suspense, highly recommend.

In 1974, rock and roll star Noel Gordon rents Villa Rosato and invites a few people along to write music and just hang out in Italy. Pierce is an up and coming musician who brings his girlfriend, Mari, and her stepsister Lara. At the end of the trip, one has written a best selling horror book, one writes a platinum album and one is dead.

In 2023, Chess and Emily book a girls trip to the same villa, now named Villa Aestas, to write their books and just spend time together. Emily starts to look into the past murder at the Villa and secrets start to come to light. As a result, their friendship is changed forever.

It is a slow burn mystery that I thought was interesting in the beginning. It has gothic vibes with sex, drugs and rock and roll and complicated relationships. I love a dual timeline! This one lost me at the end though. I kind of feel this way about Rachel Hawkins books in general and enjoy her Erin Sterling books much more. If you are a fan of Rachel Hawkins, then I think you will enjoy this one:)

Thank you to @netgalley and the publisher for an eARC for review.

Highly enjoyed this Rachel Hawkins read.

Two lifetime best friends and authors visit a villa in Italy where a murder took place many years before. They become intrigued by the story of previous tenants and want to discover the truth about the house and its story.

I wanted to read this book because I loved The Wife Upstairs and liked Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins in the past. This one was unique. I appreciated the gothic murder storyline. I wanted to know the secrets of the Villa as well. I was intrigued by the author's friendship with each other, there differing life paths, and the fact that they have come together to create a new story. It was the perfect amount of mysterious.

Another in the all-too-common dual timeline stories being published these days. In the present, we have Emily, the author of a series of cozy mysteries, is a writing slump partially brought on by a mysterious illness and exacerbated by a contentious divorce with a greedy soon-to-be ex and her bestie Chess, a social media influencer and author/speaker of self-help non-fiction books that have propelled her to the top tier of authors. Chess proposes Emily join her for the summer in Italy at a luxurious Villa in Orvieto and Emily accepts.

While exploring the house (which is much less creepy than you’d expect in a book labelled a gothic horror tale), Emily discovers clues about the second timeline – 1974- and the summer when Mari, her step-sister Lara and her married lover/musician Pierce spent time at the same villa at the invitation of famous rock-and-roller Noel and his hanger-on drug dealer Johnnie. By the end of their stay, someone is killed and someone is jailed but the two women have let loose their creative juices: Mari has penned an infamous horror feminist novel and Lara has written an album of sad songs to stand alongside Carole King’s Tapestry.

I must admit that many of the actions of the two women in present day seemed implausible and downright selfish. I couldn’t imagine how this friendship had lasted, much less been such an important relationship to each of them. Emily was somewhat more relatable but even so, I found myself frustrated with her lack of agency and willingness to put up with so much from both her husband and her best friend. And as for the group of rock-and-rollers, this whole story-within-a-story brought home how subservient women often are to the men in their lives, stifling their own creativity and needs for the sake of love.

This narrative was all right but didn’t move me in any strong way. It may appeal to Hawkins’ fans but for me, it struck me as pedestrian.

My thanks for Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with the ARC of this novel.