What's scarier, a centuries old ghost and a forbidden tower or a toxic family that dismisses you at every turn?

Anna may be heading off on vacation, but getting rest and relaxation is the last thing she expects. Going away with her family is an ordeal for Anna. Her parents keep questioning her career choice and relationship status, while her sister makes Anna's suffering all about herself.
Add in a ghost threatening her family's lives, not to mention ruining the good Italian wine, and it's a vacation Anna can't wait to escape from.

Unfortunately for Anna, the hauntings don't stay in Italy, her family just wants to forget all the terrible things, so they've placed the blame squarely at her feet. Anna's life is unraveling right before her eyes.

I really enjoyed this haunting story, but I felt like it went on a little too long in the middle.

Compulsively listenable, the narrator does a fantastic job of conveying the feeling of the main character losing herself into the haunting, as well as pronouncing the Italian so well.

Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape for this audio arc. All opinions are my own.

Ooh this was a really fun horror story to listen to. It had a slow-burn horror (is that a thing?) building through the first half of the book and then really took off after that. I loved the bitter family dynamic going on, and I really felt Anna’s frustration with her family. (Her sister Nicole is a straight up B.) Add that to vacationing in a haunted house, and you’ve got a very entertaining read on your hands.
This book definitely wasn’t what I was expecting: the humor alone (more sardonic and subtle) had me smiling throughout. It was creepy, but I didn’t find it particularly scary… until I tried to go to sleep at night.
If you like horror and can sympathize with awkward and tense family situations, this book will be right up your alley.
4.5 rounded up

🗝️ ARC REVIEW 🗝️
diavola by jennifer thorne: out March 26th! thank you netgalley & dreamscape media for early access to an audio copy!
FOUR ghostly stars 👻

WHAT TO EXPECT: the gorgeous, remote villa in tiny Monteperso seems like a perfect place to endure so much family togetherness, until things start going off the rails- the strange noises at night, the unsettling warnings from the local villagers, and the dark, violent past of the villa itself.

THOUGHTS: WOW. if a slow burn, haunted house, gothic tale infused with a disjointed family speaks to you, then this is the book for you. the first 70% was VERY well done, it did hit a bit of a lull but picked back up at the end! the sarcastic humor was a great addition to a typical take on horror and I was a big fan of this writing style!

reading diavola late at night in a hotel room with all of the lights turned off made the hair on the back of my neck stand up but it was definitely the way to go 🖤

this book had me breaking out my airpods in the middle of disneyland just so I could keep listening. an eerily perfect book to start reading on my very own family vacation.

the audiobook was beautifully crafted and truly brought diavola to life. I really enjoyed the narration and would listen to another book produced by Andi Arndt again!

which thought scares you more: a family vacation or staying in a haunted house? 😈

Thank you to NetGalley for the audiobook of Diavola!

Can we take a second to appreciate the gorgeous cover? Perfect, amazing, flawless ✨

Diavola is a bit slower paced than I typically would like, but the non-horror parts still held my attention. I thrived for this Italian setting & loved the family drama, which is primarily what this book is set around. & the horror was very good with this one! Definitely a perfect atmospheric gothic haunted house (villa) story! Jennifer Thorne slayed with this one.

Which is more terrifying- a ghost or a family vacation? Tough choice for many, but for Anna, both are happening at the same time in this funny horror tale that takes place in rural Italy. A unique setting and surprising twists and turns make this horror novel one to read!

I really liked the conflation of family dynamics and the supernatural- sometimes families can seem to act in completely ghostly and strange ways, and the author takes the two and mixes them together nicely. You don't like anyone, even the narrator, if I'm honest, and that helps the reader find humour and frights in the mirrors and paintings in the villa.

Definitely one of the most interesting books I've read so far this year!

Anna sets out on a family vacation to stay at a gorgeous remote villa in Monteparso Italy to stay with her family.

She’s the black sheep/ scapegoat of the family and is inherently on edge and considers turning back the moment she steps into the villa.

There’s a menacing sense of dread she senses sound a window on the top floor of the villa, and a mysterious locked door. The villagers glance at the family suspiciously, and avoid them in public.

In attempts to gain some understanding of their situation Anna starts asking questions to their server at a local restaurant and is left with more questions than answers.

Strange things start happening where the whole family starts losing full days from their memories, Anna starts seeing ghosts, and a mysterious key to the villas locked tower bedroom shows up.


I loved how witty the main character is. She is so justified in her frustration with her family and deserves so much better than the way they treat her. I was rooting for her to tell them to fuck off the whole time. The way this haunting played out was so unique! It kept me on edge while Anna’s reactions to it also made me laugh. As a cherry on top, the resolution was perfect!

I was very excited to receive an audiobook arc of "Diavola" by Jennifer Thorne, narrated by Andi Arndt.

Friends, this was such a fun time; you need to pick it up ASAP, and I highly recommend the audiobook specifically.

I absolutely inhaled this one… or more accurately, I guess it inhaled me. Jennifer perfectly balances a slowly developing plot with an engrossing overarching storyline that is almost impossible to put down. I’ll be thinking about this book for a very long time and will definitely be revisiting it.

The book follows Anna and her family spending their annual holiday in a beautiful Italian villa, but fairly soon things start to get weird, and then just when you think you’re on board, they get even weirder… This book truly delivered on what you would expect from this setting and so much more. As always with this genre, I would highly recommend going in not knowing too much more but be sure to always check CWs.

I really enjoyed the family dynamics and getting to know Anna, who is a perfectly flawed and chronically underestimated character.

I’m not usually one to compare books to other media, but I could not help but picture this perfectly slotted into the Flanaverse. The family dynamics, flawed characters, and overall haunted vibe had me thinking of "The Haunting of Hill House" on multiple occasions.

I can see this being the ‘vacation horror’ of the summer. I’m going to need someone to read this while camped out in a spooky Italian villa because that is 100% how this book would be best enjoyed. Please report back if you do!

Thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the audiobook arc. All opinions are my own.

I am completely obsessed with this book!! It was SO GOOD! The writing was wonderful and the characters were so deliciously unlikable!

Diavola is a story about an extremely dysfunctional family gathering together in Italy for their annual family vacation and the chaos that ensues. It goes exactly how you would expect it to, with constant blaming, jealousy, dread, and just all around pettiness, BUT the villa they rented is also crazy haunted! Think Fleabag meets Haunting of Hill House but in Italy.

I am so happy that I loved this so much! It is exactly my type of book and I could not stop listening. I hadn’t read anything by this author previously, but if she continues to put out adult horror novels this good, I will be a fan for life!

I highly recommend this one to anyone who can relate to the dramas of a vacation with your entire family, but also to those who love a spooky story about highly unlikable (albeit relatable) people.

Thank you to NetGalley, Jennifer Thorne, and Dreamscape Media for sending me an advanced listeners copy of the audiobook in return for my honest review!

One of the best horror novels I have ever read!

Anna and her family travel to Italy for a summer vacation and get a hell of a lot more than they bargained for, especially Anna. The dynamic between the family was a struggle at times to get through. Anna is seen as the outcast, never living up to the expectations of her mother, father and sister, and always being the one to hold her twin brother Ben back. So, she knew this vacation would be difficult.

There are moments with her family that are tender, which I found realistic, but it’s the house that unravels their already tenuous relationship. Quickly upon entering this stunning Italian vacation home, there is a feeling of unsettled-ness that plagues all of them.

With a locked tower that is calling to her, despite warnings from townspeople NOT to unlock it, we know how these things go… and nothing is ever the same afterward.

I loved Anna! My heart broke for her each time she tried to prove to her family that she was NOT the person the depict her as, but she never loses that wit and feistyness. The horror element of this book was written to PERFECTION! The atmosphere is formidable, creating this level of fear that is always there.

This was a fantastic novel, but I decided to enjoy it a second time with the audio book! This was done so well, narrated so perfectly. The narration gives the right amount of tension to certain scenes that made it even more enjoyable!

Anna Pace is the black sheep of her family. Every year, there is a family vacation where she just tries to get through it. This year, the family is vacationing in Tuscany in a gorgeous remote villa in Monteperso. As large as it is, there's something not quite right about the villa. The strange warnings from villagers, night noises and the violent past of the villa will not be ignored.
Honestly, as much as I enjoyed this novel, the Pace family was way more toxic and horrifying than the ghosts haunting the villa. Super creepy and enjoyable!

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for this audio e-arc.*

This is easily one of the best horror novels I have read in the last few years! This book is a mix of a family drama and slow burn horror that follows Anna, a very relatable black sheep of her family, who is forced to deal with a darkness that starts during a family vacation at a beautiful villa Italy.

Anna’s family is a toxic mess and the family dynamic in this novel is excellent. Anna presents as a seemingly normal, well-adjusted adult who handles her shitty family with humor. The horror takes some time to build but in my opinion, the paranormal side of the book is done perfectly! You feel like you are experiencing the same things Anna and her family are. I also loved the humor that was used to deal with the paranormal. I truly had no idea where this story was going which made it so easy to devour.

I listened to this on audiobook and the narrator was perfect, I really felt like the main character was reading this. Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscapes Media for an advance audio copy of this excellent novel.

I want to start with the fact that I am SO Happy I read this. The narrator was amazing. The story was wonderful.
I absolutely loved it. This was my first from this author, so I’m not sure how she normally writes, but this reminded me a lot of Rachel Harrison (good thing). It delves into family relationships to bring drama, and tension while also delivering on the haunted, increasing “am I going insane” feeling. It does have descriptions from Italy which specifically worked for me because I recently visited and could envision being there with the characters. I thought the writing was very easy to follow along without being repetitive or juvenile. The characters weren't all likeable, but it had a nice balance. I will often DNF a book if the characters grate on you the entire time, but this didn't have that problem at all. I also really enjoyed how the ending resolved everything.
I am definitely going to try more from this author

🌹 diavola by @ jenniferthorne 🥀
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
🗝🗝🗝🗝🗝🗝🗝🗝🗝🗝
Vacations are meant to be an escape…but when it comes to vacations with your family…there is none. I devoured this book! Anna is such a fun and exciting character to experience! Blunt, defiant, and so very smart, I was immediately drawn into her story and what a story it was! I couldn’t put this book down. It’s as if The Haunting, You’re Next, and a Real Housewives reunion show had a baby made of all their best parts. A perfect story laden with all the ingenuity and intimacy of what it’s like to be the black sheep of the family. While normally, I would criticize the length in this particular type of story, I was quite surprised at just how much more there was of Anna’s story to tell and never felt it lost its pace or what it was trying to say. I love, love, loved this book and I know any horror fan (or someone who dreads family events) will feel seen, heard, and understood in these pages. Original, eerie, and immersive. This is haunted house horror at its very best.

#nocontextspoilers #diavola #jenniferthorne #diavolanovel #netgalley #arcread #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #horror #horrorbooks #horrorbookstagram #bookreview #bookish #arc #bookish #horrorreads

Diavola was a wild ride! I love the "vacation from hell" in horror, and this was it! I appreciated the details about Italy as well.

I received an eARC in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley!

Cover art? Fantastic. Creepy, beautiful, intriguing.

The book itself? Boring, slow, un-creepy, unbelievable MC and family, way longer than it needed to be. The pacing makes little sense. It's slogged down with so much detail that has nothing to do whatsoever with the story. The main character was not likeable to me in the least. Maybe this just isn't quite my thing but I feel like my time would have been better spent reading something else.

Diavola was a fun, creepy, light horror that mostly takes place over a family vacation in Italy.

Anna is the black sheep of the family who is treated like the family disaster who was unable to meet their potential. The unhealthy dynamic between her parents, siblings, and their spouses makes the strange happenings at the vacation house less noticeable as they just seem part of the general chaos and poor communication. No one takes the haunting seriously until people start to disappear.

Great audio narration. Delightfully creepy cover.

This was one of those “hell is other people” type of horror books (I mean, it was also very much about ghosts, but that took a backseat for the first half of the book) that make me feel like whatever the characters had happening to them was somewhat deserved. Thus, I’d say this was a fun (to listen) story with a happy (for some) ending.

The story follows Anna, an American joining her family on a yearly vacation, this time in Tuscany, Italy. While everyone else in the family seems to enjoy one anothers’ company, Anna tries her best to stay out of conflicts and take in the culture and nature of the beautiful place they are staying at. The renovated villa seems lovely, but just like it is with the family, it appears to be just a facade, hiding something dark and rotten. As days go by, this shapes up to be a vacation none will soon be able to forget, least of all Anna.

I absolutely loved this book. The plot was set in Italy, and it wasn’t just used as a backdrop - there was clearly a lot of research done, and the details about places visited, about cultural specifics, about food and language and art and history. There were characters I loved to hate and intricate relationships, and personal growth after life changing events. The supernatural elements were smoothly merged with the real life horrors of being forced to spend time with people that deeply dislike you. The fact that there was a reference to “this is fine” meme. This book has it all!

Literally the only thing in the story that sounded ridiculous to me was the fact that using duolingo somehow was enough to get semi-fluent in Italian. No other notes, it was great.

And the narration was absolutely spot on for the main character; I cannot attest to the quality of Italian being spoken (as I don’t speak a lick myself), but it sounded really well, too.

All in all, this is just the right book for anyone looking for a solid, not too dark horror.

I received an advance review copy from Netgalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Rating: 3.5/5 Stars
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Diavola is a very captivating story that is a mix of horror and family drama. Told in a singular POV through the view of Anna we meet the Pace family and if I am being totally honest – every single one of them sucks. I was super angry at how they acted towards Anna, even if she wasn’t the most likable character herself. The drama sucked me in, I wanted to know why this family was so shitty and just how this story would pan out.
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Diavola is a bit of a slow burn. The focus is mainly on the family and their differences; until the haunting occurs. I really enjoyed the way that Thorne created this character and how exactly this ghost haunts the house. I think that the story itself had an interesting theme of a personal haunting and how people just naturally have darkness in them, how evil entities could just be drawn to certain people.
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Towards the end of the story this one really picked up pace and I found myself unable to put it down. If I am being honest, I didn’t necessarily care too too much about what happened to the family (but I will say that in the end there is a pretty quick and perfect round up of what happened to each family member). I love where Thorne went with this one with the ending.
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I listened to this one via audio and Andi Arndt was phenomenal. She did a great job at keeping my attention especially during the slow moments. I highly recommend the audio to all of my audiobook fans!
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Overall, I would have loved this one a bit more if there was a little less continuous drama and a little more haunting and if it maintained a faster pace throughout. Don’t let the 3.5 stars deter you on this one I thought this one was good! I think the entire concept was great, I felt that it was very atmospheric, and I will definitely be looking forward to reading more of Thornes work. I know that Diavola is going to be a huge hit when it releases on 3/26 - be sure to check this one out. Huge thank you to NetGallet, Jennifer Thorne and Dreamscape Media for the ALC in exchange for my honest review.

This book really reached out and had me by the hair in the end

Honestly I am giving this book a 4 star rating only due to the fact the ending really sped up with its ghostly paranormal vibes. Other than that, this one should really be 3.75 stars for me.

Ghosts, paranoia, mental illness, it all sounds the same and somewhat similar within each other.

Anna Pace, a woman dragged into a family vacation to Italy, where she is gaslighted and insulted by her family entire time. All the while she begins to realize the house they rented has dark, controlling, and ghostly secrets.
...............oh and there is a special skeleton key

Dysfunctional family members are always situations that can be annoying. I felt for Anna and kept telling myself during the book "girl speak up and stand your ground." Anna deserved so much better. Her family really manipulated her. This being a ghost story, but it was more than just about ghosts. Mental awareness was wrapped around this novel and really spoke about learning to control your thoughts and not giving into the voices in your head.

Themes: Ghostly presents, paranoia, dysfuntional family, tragedy, Italian culture, Black sheep

Thank you Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for this ARC in exchange for my honest review. I did really enjoy this one.

This is my first read by this author and I loved it!

The story centers on the main character, Anna. She travels to Italy to vacation with her family at an air B&B. It seems like an idyllic setting for everyone to relax and enjoy. Immediately upon arrival, things seem not quite right. As the vacation spins out of control Anna’s family places the blame on her rather than face reality.

I really connected with Anna and was infuriated by how her family treated her. The Italy setting is beautiful and it feels like you’re right there. Part of the story takes place in New York City and again, the writing made me feel as if I right there experiencing it too.

The ending really brought it all together and was so SATISFYING.

This had a similar feel to The Invincible Life of Addie LaRue and Black Sheep, both books that I really enjoyed .