This wasn’t my first book by the author and won’t be the last either.
I liked the settings as I love everything Italy and Italian. The villains was beautiful and whirl a horrible murder happened there a few years, the inspiring ideas for any reader, not only writers, can speak to everyone.
Told in dual time, this story kept me engaged throughout the chapters and I found it quite entertaining.
The ending? Not as expected but a good one for the story overall.

An intriguing and quick read. This was my first my Rachel Hawkins story and it was fast paced and kept me invested throughout. Emily and her friend Chess stay in a beautiful Italian villa that has a history. A famous murder is connected to the villa and as a writer Emily finds inspiration in the historical happenings. We get both timelines. This book kept me in my toes, and I didn’t predict the ending-though I’m not sure how I feel about the ending either.

The Villa is another great book from Rachel Hawkins. I loved the stories of Chess and Emma, trying to find their way. I loved the villa's descriptions, very atmospheric.

Wow I loved this! The Villa is about secrets and inspiration and guilt and love and writing and the ownership of art, and about how every story depends on who’s telling it. The pacing is perfect and the writing is sharp. I finished it in one sitting. Will recommend!

Houses remember. This story paints a picture of sorrow, loss, joy, and a beautiful Italian villa. Emma just wants to write again, away from her money grabbing soon to be ex husband. Chess is digging for a change in her writing career. Years ago a young life was taken in the house. From the pain rose two women, one writer and one singer. The summer long ago was for five carefree souls, wasn't doesn't make it to the end. Chess and Emma will either find greatness or destroy everything they've built. Rachel Hawkins knocked this one out of the park. Beautiful setting, excellent mix of past and present storyline, and relatable characters who just wanted more. My favorite of hers so far. Thank you so much Netgalley for the advanced copy. I can't wait for this to get in the hands of more readers.

Rachel! Girl! You continue to get me at every corner. I always know I can rely on her books and this is no exception. Amazing plot, Great characters and even better suspense

Emily is trying to get through a rocky divorce, so her friend Chess decides to rent a villa for her and Emily to share and get away to focus on writing their next books. Chess is a known self-help writer, while Emily is a lesser known fiction writer. Emily's soon-to-be ex husband is trying to claim partial ownership of her successful series of books, so Emily is determined to write something different and reinvent herself as a writer.

Emily immediately becomes interested in the murder that happened years ago at the same villa her and Chess are renting. She decides to use this to her advantage to help jumpstart her next book. As Emily digs deeper, she finds out more and more information that lead up to the murders.

The book is told in the POVs of both Emily (present) and Mari (past). While I liked the overall premise of the book, it fell rather flat for me. It was certainly not twisty enough for me to remain interested throughout the entire book. I wish I could say that the ending made up for all of the book's misgivings, but sadly it does not. I should have learned my lesson with this author after Reckless Girls. I'll probably skip any future books by this author.

Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC of this book in exchange my honest review.

The Villa is an inky-dark look at two sets of best friends coping with some jaw-dropping betrayals. It unfortunately sports some predictable twists, and then takes far too many distracting excursions along its primrose pathway, all of which keeps it from pulling a higher grade.

Motivational author Chess Chandler (WIP: Swipe Right on Life!) and mystery author Emily Sheridan have been friends since they were girls, but job responsibilities and relationship issues (specifically Emily’s marriage and then very messy divorce from her accountant-husband, Matt) have pushed them apart in adulthood. After Emily’s divorce, the twosome agree to head out on an Italian holiday – to a ‘murder house,’ the Villa Aestas.

The Aestas was formerly known as the Villa Rosato, location of the Villa Rosato Horror. In 1974, Guitarist/songwriter Pierce Sheldon, fellow musician Noel Gordon, hanger on/drug supplier/possible groupie Johnnie Dorchester, and Pierce’s teenage girlfriend and her stepsister converge on the villa for a single summer. Noel is in the middle of a creative slump and trying to refresh his mind after his band broke up and the rest of its members embarked on satisfying solo careers. Pierce, a relative industry newbie, decides a retreat to write some fresh material is what he needs - but soon the month-long sojourn turns sour.

Pierce’s nineteen-year-old girlfriend Mari Godwick is a rule-breaking science fiction writer in-the-making whose entire life has been lived among the famous and neglectful; she and her stepsister ran away to live with Pierce when she was just sixteen. Mari was inspired to write a single, genius book by the events of that weekend weekend entitled Lilith Rising, which made her name, but she has not published anything since; she considers the death of her baby son when she was barely eighteen just punishment for her actions at that time. Her stepsister, Lara Larchmont, then a neophyte songwriter and guitarist, is inspired by the situation to write an album, Aestas and cultivates a sunny public persona and a decent musical career, one that’s forever dwarfed by Aestas’ success. But her music is haunted by Fleetwood Mac-style representations of messy romantic triangles which are killing everyone and everything in the lover’s pathways, and she is compared often to Carole King. The two women survived the Vila Rosato horror but their lives are forever tainted and shadowed by what they’ve been through. But who died, and who was the murderer?

Decades later, to break a writing slump and haunted by her inability to mesh with Chess, Emily decides she’s going to find out what really happened during the Vila Rosato Horror. This leads her to revelations about her relationship with Chess and the bond they share – as well as a connection between Chess and Matt.

The Villa spends a lot of time in deep character study before getting to the dual mysteries that underpin the book. It successfully brings about a sense of dread and foreboding, but a series of double-twists toward the end of the novel make no sense and read as, frankly, ludicrous.

The novel tries to build a connection between the two tales of sisterhood with an interlinked tale of infidelity, but while most of the men in these tales are equally monstrous, Hawkins’ modern women are less interesting. Chess and Emily read as interchangeable, with Chess being the clear manipulator using psychobabble to justify her choices while Emily generally wallows in her victimhood until she chooses to excise the wickedness from her life. The author has better luck with Mari and Lara, who come off as realistically naive and tortured to start with, then as realistically desperate and embittered, trying to make their lives seem bigger than they are in reaction to what they’ve been through. If the book had been about the latter twosome I definitely wouldn’t be ranking this lower than a B, but the predictability of where the modern storyline goes dragged it down for me.

Those coming to this novel hoping for romance will be quite disappointed; Pierce and Noel are both bounders to differing degrees; Matt is flatly and cartoonishly dislikeable, and the only likable person around is Johnnie – and what happens to him shouldn’t happen to a dog. Only the sisterhoods here – one unhealthily close and twisted, binding the two women together forever in a choking lie, the other smashed to death in a bid for freedom – are what matters.

It’s surprising Rachel Hawkins doesn’t name-drop Mary Shelley while talking about female science fiction writers at the beginning of the book. It’s that kind of ineptitude that helps make The Villa an imperfect but somewhat compelling mess of a novel.

Buy it at: Amazon, Audible or your local bookshop
Visit our Amazon Storefront

This surprised me in many ways. I absolutely loved the twist, the duel timelines and the parallels between the two stories. I was intrigued, engaged and really really enjoyed this one. Plus A+++++ for cover!

Wow there was a lot to digest here. Sometimes it was a bit difficult to swallow but it tasted pretty good and went down fairly easy so no worries there. And in the end I felt satisfied and full.

Thank you for this opportunity! I will update with links once all reviews are live.

The Villa

4.5 ⭐️

I love Rachel Hawkins’ writing—Both the thrillers and the witchy romcoms. The Villa is her latest Thriller coming out this January!

The Villa covers two best friends renting an Italian Villa to work on their next books. In alternating chapters we learn about the murder that happened in the house in the seventies. As with most of Rachel’s books these characters are a little bit twisted and no one is blameless.

I enjoyed how quickly this book went and was so happy to get an advanced copy from @netgalley and Stmartinspress

If you’re looking for something that’s a little bit thriller and a little bit historical fiction, check this out in January!

This book has a great premise but unfortunately it seemed to fall flat for me. I could not find myself connecting with the characters and the plot line seemed to drag on. I stopped reading about 2/3 of the way through

For maybe the first time ever, I went into this book completely blind with no idea what it was about or even what genre it was. I read The Wife Upstairs, Rachel Hawkins’ loose take on Jane Eyre, last year and really enjoyed it. So it comes as no surprise that she as once again found inspiration in gothic romanticism.

When it comes to thrillers or suspense novels, I tend to prefer dual pov narratives. What made this book so interesting and engaging was the dual perspectives taking place in the same villa, separated only by the 40 years between Mari’s visit and Emily’s. In addition, the book contains news articles and podcasts that give you yet another perspective on what is occurring and help to fill in some of the missing details.

I listened to this one on audio, while reading along with the book, and of course the audio was amazing. Julia Whelan can do no wrong, and her counterpart Kimberly M. Wetherell was equally excellent.

Read if you like:
•domestic suspense
•historical thrillers
•dual POVs
•books about books
•mary shelley’s frankenstein

Than you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC of this book, and Libro.fm for the ACL in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this book!

I've been a fan of Rachel for awhile, and have enjoyed her last two mystery/thriller novels The Wife Upstairs, and Reckless Girls, so I was very excited to read this one. I also love mysteries where the location or house is part of the overall mystery and almost becomes a character itself. The book was inspired by "Fleetwood Mac, the Manson murders, and the infamous summer Percy and Mary Shelley spent with Lord Byron at a Lake Geneva castle––the birthplace of Frankenstein", and you'll find all those elements within the book.

The pieces of the story fall into place while being told from both present day Emily, and 1970s Mari. There's a big murder mystery to figure out, but also smaller scandals and lies that come to light. I also enjoyed the inclusion of Aestas' lyrics, and various lines from Mari, Emily, and Chess' books and how they help provide insight into the characters' minds as well as help you with the mysteries. The common denominator between the two timelines, so that woman can be held back from their true potential by toxic men. Houses remember.

Read this if you enjoy mysteries and thrillers that keep you guessing until the end.

I absolutely loved Rachel Hawkins’ book The Wife Upstairs. Her next novel, Reckless Girls, fell flat for me so I had high hopes that The Villa would be reminiscent of the first novel that I enjoyed so well. Sadly, I have DNF’d this one at 48%. The sexual sleaziness was just too much for me and I didn’t see it coming to an end any time soon. Maybe the plot actually has some substance, but at this point I’m not seeing it.

Thank. You to the publisher and Netagalley for the digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Wow! Rachel Hawkins has done it again. I really enjoyed reading this book. The duel timelines kept you invested and guessing what was going to happen next.
I did see some of the things coming, but it didn’t take away from the overall story.
I highly recommend picking this book up when it’s released.

I’m really not sure what I just read and while the idea of this book seems good. It just didn’t come off as well as I would of liked.

This book is a dual time playing out with out as letters being read by our man character and just from the pov of the previous timeline main character. (That sounds so confusing, but makes sense when you read it.) For the beginning part of this it felt like two different books and I couldn’t quite figure out how this two parts came together. They are quite different though which I guess should be good, but to me felt like I was reading two books in one. As time went on it was easier to understand how the stories come together, but they do feel like what the stories states that they just happened to be at the same place at the same time. I wasn’t a fan of this one.

This book was great and kept you involved from the beginning. The ending was a twist that I wasn't expecting and very well written.

The Villa is an absorbing and suspenseful gothic novel set in Italy.

Emily, the author of a long-running book series, feels like her life is in a rut. Not only has her husband left her, but she’s also suffering from writer’s block. When her lifelong best friend and self-help guru, Chess, invites her to Italy for the summer, Emily joins her, thinking it will be the reset she needs to write her next book.

The villa in Orvieto happens to be where a brutal murder occurred in 1974. Back then, a famous rockstar invited an aspiring musician and his muses to stay at the villa while they produced a new album. After the murder, some of their careers took off, with one of the guests penning a novel that became a classic feminist horror novel. Another, composed a platinum-selling album.

Emily becomes super invested in this tragedy and begins to think there’s more to the story than previously supposed. Meanwhile, tensions between Emily and Chess thicken.

This suspenseful drama has dual timelines and dual perspectives. I would not classify this as a thriller. There are several good twists and the pacing is consistent, if a tad on the slower side, which might not be for every reader but worked for this reader here.

It touches on grown men going after minors and the competitive streak that can sometimes surface between friends.

I enjoyed the author’s last book Reckless Girls, but I liked this one even more. The plot is a bit more complex, and the writing is engaging. I don’t usually enjoy rockstar themes, but as this took a different approach, it worked for me. And Emily’s POV became more interesting with every chapter. The tidbits on being a published author and the writing process were insightful.

I think it’s safe to say Rachel Hawkins is now one of my go-to authors. I can’t wait to see what else she has in store.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for providing an arc via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Pub Date: January 3, 2023

Childhood friends Chess and Emily’s relationship is becoming increasingly complicated. Desperately hoping to reconnect, the best friends plan a girls trip to Italy. The beautiful villa they are renting for the summer has a mysterious, murderous history that Emily can’t help but investigate. As past secrets and present day truths are revealed, Chess and Emily’s friendship becomes more and more strained. Emily will do whatever it takes to discover what really happened at Villa Aestas in 1974. What she finds will change her life forever.

This book was a slow burn for me. I wasn’t completely pulled in from the beginning and it took me quite a while to really get into it. There are three storylines and mainly a story within a story. I was really confused at the beginning, but once I got everything figured out I actually enjoyed the dual timelines and multiple POVs.

I liked how Hawkins connected the past and present. I especially liked the past perspective and Mari’s story, it kept me wanting to know more. The present honestly didn’t do much for me.

I did really enjoy the last part of the book and the ending. It tied up the loose ends and wasn’t something I was expecting.

The book is good, but it didn’t have the wow factor that stuck with me. I wasn’t thinking about this one long after I finished reading.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC!