I ended up DNFing this one fairly early on. I didn't like that main character at all. I had little patience for an 'Influencer" who feels she is not a good mother, so she spends zero time at home instead of working through her issue and bonding with her child.

The Summer Villa by Melissa Hill goes back and forth in time and between the perspectives of three women. The "then" and "now" slowly display both the bonds between these women and also the differences. Gradually, the two story threads wind together. Some of how that happens is as I predict, but, much to my delight, some of it is unexpected. The ending comes back to the expected, but the unexpected in what is a summer beach read makes it more memorable.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2020/05/the-summer-villa.html

Reviewed for NetGalley and the Harlequin Trade Publishing's 2020 Spring Reads blog tour.

This is the first novel I’ve read by Melissa Hill and I think it was a great introduction! First, the setting of the Amalfi coast was beautiful and really helped transport me away from my current confinement to my apartment. And isn’t book traveling one of the reasons we all love reading so much? To feel like we’ve been somewhere from the comfort of our own home is something I don’t take for granted!

The novel is told through the different women’s perspective, so know this going in if that’s not a writing style you typically enjoy. Unfortunately for me I did not enjoy all of the characters equally and at times felt drawn to get back to different parts of the story. However, I don’t think it detracted too greatly from the overall story.

This novel has a slower pace to begin with and may not fit everyone’s reading mood, but I think if you have time to sink into the story, enjoy the setting, and appreciate the theme of female friendships you’ll be quite satisfied by the end.

I’d recommend this if you’re looking for an escapist read as spring turns to summer!

The Summer Villa, an engagingly sweet summer escape, saw me relaxing in a pretty villa in Italy - it was certainly an enchanting read! I revelled in losing myself to Melissa Hill's fabulous novel. The characters were amicable and convivial, though flawed, but still a real pleasure to get to know.

Three women, Kim, Annie and Colette, all fleeing from their problems at home, pitch up at a crumbling villa in Italy, called Dolce Vita. The women all form a close bond, and their lives are forever changed. Five years later, successful entrepreneur Kim decides to buy and restore the charming villa, and along with some business associates, is now planning a three-day grand opening. It will be a perfect opportunity for the three great friends to reunite and spend some time together enjoying themselves on the Amalfi coast. Naturally, everything does not go as planned - secrets are unearthed and old memories are dredged up, all resulting in oodles of melodrama.

Melissa Hill has written a divine story that is bursting at the seams with vivid and exquisite descriptions of Italy and Villa Dolce Vita. All of the characters were adeptly developed and I often found myself wishing I could be there along with my new friends, Kim, Annie and Colette. I thoroughly enjoy books with strong friendship themes so The Summer Villa was a perfect read for me. The author's writing was just as I expected it would be, first-class, and the perfect pacing and compelling plot-line all added a touch of style to the novel.

With its exciting resolution, this is one story you won't want to miss! Very highly recommended without any hesitation to anyone looking for their next great read.

Thanks to NetGalley, Harlequin - MIRA and the author, Melissa Hill for the complimentary copy. This is my honest and totally voluntary review.

This is the first book I have read by Melissa Hill, but it won't be my last. I enjoyed this story very much and came to like and admire the three women in the story. Melissa Hill's writing was smooth, enjoyable and descriptive. The story is told in two timelines, six years in the past when the three women first meet and in the present when Kim invites them the opening of her luxury retreat, after refurbishing Villa Dolce Vita, the guesthouse they met at six years ago.

All three of these women have some turmoil in their lives both in the past and the present. Secrets are being kept, lies have been told and decisions made that caused them to travel to this point in time. At first, I did not like Kim that much, I thought she was a spoiled rich girl, but as we get to know her, I changed my mind completely. Were they flawed, yes, but aren't we all. I wasn't completely sure what had happened in the past, but had my suspicions. I was partially right, but when everything is exposed, I had a bit of a Wow moment. This was a relaxing and enjoyable story of female friendship, accepting consequences of your decisions, and a bit of an armchair vacation to the Amalfi Coast.

This was the perfect spring read, of friendship, second chances and fighting for what you truly desire in life. The beginning took me a while to settle into the rhythm and the swapping of characters and timelines, but once I did I couldn't get enough of it. I just had to keep reading to see how the storylines converged. I absolutely loved the setting in Italy along the Amalfi coast. Definitely a dream destination for myself and others, it added an extra sparkle to the story.

The main characters are three young women from different backgrounds in life and different countries. You have sweet Collette from England, who took over the family bakery after college while her mum battled cancer, spunky Annie from Ireland who was adopted and had a rough life and just doesn't give up, and Kim who comes from an affluent NY family and whose parent's shadows loomed over her so much that she decided to escape and create her own life. It was hard to pick a favorite, as each of the girls had their own quirks and likable traits. I felt invested in each girl's storyline, from then and now. I really liked how it all wrapped up at the end and felt the ending could not have been more perfect! I might be biased though, because I was team Luca the entire story.

Collette, Kim, and Annie are three young women whose paths cross when they all stay at Villa Dolce Vita one summer.
Collette is on vacation to get away from the responsibility of caring for her mother while she went through cancer treatments and running the family bakery. Her mother and sister arranged the whole thing so that she would have something to enjoy once her mother was given the all clear. Collette had always dreamed of Italy and studied the language while at uni, this is a dream come true for her.
Kim has escaped an overbearing family and an arranged marriage. For the first time she’s on her own and having to navigate through life without her family’s riches behind her. She’s setting a course for her life, one that she actually wants. Armed with an eye for stunning images, and some words of wisdom discovered in a found diary, she’s making the most of her time on the Amalfi Coast.
For Collette this is all a dream. Fed up with her so-called life in Dublin, she’s been gifted this trip from a client who made this part of her dying request. Collette needs to figure out how to get out of the rut she’s in and actually make something of herself with her talent for hair and makeup. Renting a stool in a shop where the owner is still styling like it’s the ‘80s isn’t for her and she needs to clean up her act on top of it. This trip to Italy is just the ticket for this girl who’s never had anything.
Meeting while all staying at the same crumbling house on the Amalfi coast, a beautiful friendship is born. One that seems to be a forever friendship.
Coming back together at the same place six years later, many things have changed, including the house. Now that Kim’s taken it and turned it into a spa and wellness center, it’s been given the royal treatment. But not everything is happiness and light. All three have problems that impact their lives in a major way, from childlessness to losing everything, they all put on a brave face and come together to celebrate Villa Dolce Vita. While there though, everything crashes down and they’re forced to reveal those long held secrets that threaten their friendship.
This was a good book, I enjoyed the story and most of the characters, but parts of the story dragged for me and that is the reason for only four stars. I started to get bored, and I figured out everything well before it was all revealed. If you enjoy books by Mary Kay Andrews, then you’ll like this book as well.
**I was given an ARC of this story and this is my honest and voluntary review.

A Reunion of Three Friends Reveals Old Secrets

Kim at thirty is finally running away from the demands of her wealthy family to do something for herself. She’s chosen a crumbling villa on the Amalfi Coast where she’s sure her parents won’t look for her. At the villa she meets two other women running from their own problems.

Annie, a hair dresser from Dublin, is the party girl. She’s in Italy because of a surprise bequest from one of her customers. Collette from England is worn out from caring for her mother who had breast cancer. She needs a chance to relax.

Six years later, Kim has purchased and restored the villa as a spa. It’s the grand opening, and she’s invited her two friends to come for a reunion. It should be a marvelous chance to enjoy each other’s company and catch up, but old tensions simmer beneath the surface.

This is a great escape novel. The scenery and description of the villa make you want to visit. It’s a great book to curl up with.

Each of the characters is unique. At first I found Kim too driven, but it was the problem she had to face. Colette is a delightful character, but she seems unsure about her marriage. Annie has problems with her business that she’d like to push aside.

The story is told in two time periods: when the girls met and the present. I thought the weaving together of the character’s stories was skillfully done leading to the somewhat surprising ending.

I received this book from Harlequin for this review.

A villa on the Amalfi Coast is the setting for this languid tale of three friends who reunite six years after initially meeting at said villa. Each comes from a different background, and each has reasons for wanting to return. But they find out that it isn’t always easy to recapture the magic. I liked the characters but thought a few were given short shrift, and one was pretty unlikable. I did think that the author did a good job of exploring female friendships. And I loved the setting. For a full review, please visit my blog at Fireflies and Free Kicks. This review was written based on a digital ARC and all thoughts are my own.

This book is told with flashbacks which is one of my pet hates in a book. I did find this a bit hard to get a grasp of the story as it was also told by three different characters. I had trouble connecting with these characters which did have an effect of my enjoyment of the story.

Six years ago three very different women come to paradise for three very different reasons but now 6 years later they come for the same reason to see the place in which their friendship was born. Villa Dolce Vita has been transformed into a spa and wellness retreat on the Amalfi Coast Italy. Kim has invited them to a reunion but the grand opening will bring more fireworks than she ever thought when she planned this weekend.

American Kim - Has run away from her rich family who want her to marry a total stranger.

English Colette - After years of working in the family business and helping her sick mother, she is given a holiday.

Irish Annie - Real-life orphan Annie who whole life had only been down she is waiting for the Up part of her life. She is gifted a holiday from a dying old lady to Italy

Each of the women have returned with a whole new set of issues that are very common with many women in this modern-day fast pace life. Secret will unfold, dreams may be broken and can love and friendship survive?

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read and review this book the above is my honest opinion.

***I received an ebook copy from the publisher at no cost***

This book brought me on a beautiful journey to Italy and was a welcome escape from reality. 

Annie, Colette, and Kim met years earlier, at a villa they were all staying at in Italy. Six years later, Kim has converted the villa into a wellness retreat and is prepping for the grand opening. She wants to bring her two friends back to the villa to see it and to catch up. 

 In The Summer Villa, Hill delivers the tale of what happened with each woman during the 6 years they spent apart. Kim has a bigger part in the story than the others, but it's nice to see where life has taken each of these women and to get an idea of who they are today. The book is heavy on the friendship aspect, and I really enjoyed that. 

This was an easy read and a perfect distraction for me. Hill does a great job of setting the scene and making readers feel like they're living inside the pages of the story. I enjoyed all the characters in this book as well. The story has bumps in the road along the way but overall, it's sweet and fun and a very enjoyable read. 

If you're looking for a literary escape to Italy, this is the book for you. Grab a glass of vino, kick your feet up, and start reading! 

Four stars to this novel!

this was a nice book to read to get away from our current situation.

it is told about 3 women in three different timelines who are all running away from their lives to Italy. it was a quick and nice book about women dealing with current every day issues.

i was given this book by netgalley and publisher for an honest review and opinion.

Title: The Summer Villa
Author: Melissa Hill
Genre: Women’s fiction
Rating: 4 out of 5

On one hand, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Italy—and a vacation sounds wonderful right about now! On the other, I found Kim and Annie to be mildly annoying characters at best. Kim was rather self-absorbed, spoiled, and selfish. Annie was…well, she had a huge chip on her shoulder and spent quite a bit of time feeling sorry for herself. That’s a no-go for me.

I liked Colette, and I would have enjoyed more time spent with her, but a lot of this novel fell in the “too good to be true” category for me. I mean, doesn’t everyone meet handsome strangers who fall immediately in love with you on vacation…and end up wildly successful in your chosen field? This is still an quick, breezy read that doesn’t require too much mental involvement to enjoy.

Melissa Hill is a bestselling author. The Summer Villa is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Harlequin/MIRA in exchange for an honest review.)

We all may be stuck in our own homes, but you can visit the beautiful Amalfi Coast in Melissa Hill's latest novel, The Summer Villa. Told in two separate timelines, we meet three young women who are all running away from their homes to stay at Villa Dolce Vita, a small, rather run-down vacation rental in Positano.



Kim is a 30 year-old American woman whose wealthy parents expect her to go to London and marry herself off to a man she doesn't even know to help their business prospects. When Kim refuses, she secretly runs away and ends up at Villa Dolce Vita. There she meets two other young ladies, Colette and Annie.



Colette is taking a well-deserved vacation after running her family's bakery in England after her father deserts the family while his wife fights breast cancer. Annie is an Irish hair stylist who receives this trip from one of her customers when the woman passes away.



Annie is a party girl, and she spends her nights out at the local bars, where she meets a handsome British man and thinks he may be the one. Colette is a sweet young woman who is a little imtimidated by her gorgeous roommates, but when she meets a handsome Italian man who woos her, Annie and Colette are a little surprised and envious.



While spending her days at the pool sunning herself and trying to figure out what she will do with her life, Kim finds a journal filled with affirmations and quotes that speak to her. She begins to take stunning photos of Positano and capture them with these affirmations, and when she posts them on Instagram, they go viral.



Years later, Kim has turned her Instagram posts into a mindfullness book, and she buys Villa Dolce Vita and creates a spa and wellness retreat there. As she prepares for the grand opening, she is struggling with the feeling that she cannot bond with her young daughter, and that her husband will discover this. It also appears that someone is trying to sabotage her grand opening.



Colette is married and dealing with infertility. Her husband is consumed with work and tries to talk her out of going to Positano for Kim's grand opening. Annie is a single mom who now owns a successful hair salon, and while she is going to the grand opening, something is bothering her about seeing her old friends again.



Each woman is struggling with issues that many women can relate to in the current timeline, and it all comes to a head at the grand opening. There are secrets that come out, and I admit that I was taken by complete surprise, which I enjoyed. Hill skillfully puts all the pieces together and creates a novel that keeps the reader guessing, and as someone who has visited Positano, I was happy to revisit it in this captivating novel. If you want to escape to a beautiful place for a few hours, pick up The Summer Villa. Fans of Liane Moriarty's novels will enjoy this one.


Thanks to Harlequin for putting me on Melissa Hill's tour.

If ever there was a time to be transported to a beautiful place for a story brimming with heart and friendship, then this is it and THE SUMMER VILLA by Melissa Hill is the perfect book to read.

​Years ago, three young women, Kim, Colette, and Annie, found themselves and each other in a run-down stone house on the stunning Amalfi Coast on a trip that would change all of them forever. Now one of those women, Kim, has built up a successful company and has renovated the old house in Italy that meant so much to them all, and is ready to open it up for business and to her old friends from the past. Even though they do not keep in touch as much as they should, this will be a time for them all to come together and catch up with each other's lives and reconnect. But no matter how far you push it down, problems always seem to have a way of crashing to the surface at the worst possible time, and as they each try to deal with their issues, both past and present, will they discover that the truth can set you free?

As always with Melissa Hill's novels, the setting is breathtaking and as we are all staying safe at home right now, closing my eyes and feeling like I was there on the Amalfi Coast was pure bliss. The characters are deftly created and quickly felt familiar, and I cared about what happened to each and every one of them.

A wonderful story of friendship, choices, and being true to oneself, THE SUMMER VILLA by Melissa Hill is simply a joy to read with some surprises along the way that will keep you on your toes. A fantastic story by a fantastic Irish author. I look forward to the next book from Melissa Hill.

An incredible romantic novel that kept me on my toes the whole time. The storyline was exceptional and the characters engaging and believable.

Three friends, Kim, Colette and Annie head to Dolce Vita in Italy separately but end up finding friendship. Through the course of several years, their lives go in different directions. When the get together again, Colette and Annie see how Kim made what was a lost cause to what is now a gorgeous retreat.

Will the time the three women spend together be something that can be a true lifetime friendship? Or will secrets long hidden prove that this certainly wouldn't last?

Relationships and secrets just might come in the way and just might break the bond formed between the women. Each woman has a compelling story. Kim is fighting to stand on her own despite the pressure from her parents. Colette has been an exceptional daughter, but really needed a vacation and Annie who has also had her battles and this holiday is just what she needs. Each woman had secrets that could prove to be their undoing. Getting back together should have solidified the bonds already formed, but that might not happen for them.

I love how we see the women draw together, and imagine how it would feel when very relatable problems could break everything apart. I have always enjoyed books about friends and this book by Melissa Hill was just right for me.

Many thanks to MIRA and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.

Judging from the reviews on Goodreads I'm very much in the minority in not really enjoying this particular book. And I can definitely see why people enjoyed this. It definitely pulls you in quickly and I found it to be one of those books that I easily flew through. The characters were fairly well developed and the world they inhabited was really brought to life. All three women were at low spots when they met and watching the friendship develop was really nice.


Sounds great right? And I can definitely understand all those 4 star ratings. But here's what kept me from feeling the same. I didn't really like any of them - except maybe Colette. And even worse I didn't feel like any of the characters really progressed or dealt with their issues when we see them in the "Now" chapters. I don't mind not liking a character at the beginning of the book but by the end I need to like them more for me to really enjoy it and I need to feel like their lives really improved. The author alternates "Then" and "Now" right from the beginning so we see that while their lives may have changed they haven't really changed themselves and are falling into the same old issues. I wanted growth and an increased happiness and just didn't feel like I got that.



This is a quick light read and some of my issues could have been my mood but for the most part this just wasn't the book I wanted it to be.

This book was absolutely fantastic. It had the warmth of the friendship on the surface and a pot of bubbling secrets deep underneath. I loved the way author Melissa Hill lulled me to a level of comfort before pulling the rug from under my feet when the truth started revealing itself. One by one.

Three women met at the Amalfi Coast in Italy 6 years ago. They were at the crossroads of life, friendship soon bonded them well along with few secrets which they kept hidden. They went back home, stayed in touch off an Don until the grand opening of the Dolce Vita brought them back. Secrets exploded. Woohoo.

My first book by this talented author, the beginning felt a little slow. The story laid the foundation of their lives in the past chapters and gave me the strives in their lives in the present ones. Both were balanced well but it was the present life which held my attention.

There was this feeling of impending doom in every chapter, like a box which was about to burst open. And I was so eager to explore the secrets. Something was hidden and it all came slithering out. I was the naughty one feeding my literary voyeuristic tendencies with this book.

The story kept me completely hooked in the second half, and I couldn't stop tapping my kindle until I reached the end. An entertaining read. I loved it.

I am a sucker for scenery and stories about rock solid friendships among grown women, I always have been; there are enough stories about devotion and friendship regarding teenage girls but stories about adult women tend to put the focus on romance, family building, and what we should do after it all falls apart.
There is some of that in The Summer Villa, no doubt about it, but there is more strength in the friendships of the three women who are the focus than envy or bad feelings or competition which is wonderful. Having an author skillfully tip a nod to things without them becoming the focus like Hill does is a refreshing change of pace.
That being said, The Summer Villa is a slow-building marathon, not a sprint, and you have to be patient while the story unfolds, but luckily it does so against the backdrop of the Amalfi coast in a gorgeous villa that anybody would want to vacation in.