Glad that I had a chance to read this early. An interesting mystery/thriller. Not a huge fan of Chess or the ending. ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

I have always been a huge fan of Rachel Hawkins books. with the last book prior to this one being one of my all time favorites, i had high hopes that this book would be as amazing as the last. I was however disappointed. It was far from a terrible book, but it was something that i expected to be better. The plot twist on Ems behalf was very predictable, and the book ended on a note that i felt was very bland. The writing style per usual of all of her books was wonderful, i just couldn’t get behind the story enough to say that I was really wowed by this particular book.

I’m only a dabbler of mysteries/thrillers, and I would call this a light version of the genre, but that was just fine by me.

Multiple timelines focus on pairs of women who are sisters by choice. In the present day, we follow Emily and Chess as the former escapes a crappy life season to spend the summer in Italy at the latter’s invitation. Despite a decades-long friendship, their relationship is strained and tensions build at The Villa. In the 1974 timeline, it’s sisters-in-law Mari and Lara who spend a summer immersed in sex, drugs, and rock & roll with a trio of men.

Secrets, betrayals, and murder are par for the course, but the most enduring stories center around the interplay of darkness and light in each of us.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for sharing this advance copy!

Welcome to the Villa Aestas, located in Italy with it's beautiful landscape and walls within. A place to escape and get much needed relaxation. A place where tragedy struck fifty years earlier. Writers Emily and Chess have been best friends since childhood and although they haven't been in touch as much in recent years, they decide to take a much needed vacation together at the Villa. Upon arriving Emily is intrigued about the murder that took place decades earlier and the women who came out of it with success beyond their wildest dreams. She starts to suspect there is more to the story than meets the eye and soon feels inspired to create her own masterpiece.

What an absolutely beautiful story. There's something so haunting about this that it stays with you for a long time after finishing. This was written so well that even with all it's inserts from articles, podcasts and dual timelines, it doesn't confuse you but make the story even more intriguing. The past written in this was the perfect imagery of what the life of a rockstar's girlfriend would of been like in the seventies. This is one of the few books that as I'm reading it, I am watching it as a movie in my head. You will hate, love and pity everyone in this but the one thing you will feel for sure is it's perfection. I highly recommend this. Five stars.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC.

Thank you so much to Rachel Hawkins, St. Martin’s Press, and Netgalley for this ARC of The Villa. This book pulled me in from the very beginning. The dual POVs kept me intrigued throughout the entire book. I loved the twists and turns and actually internalized a lot of the character’s feelings. Once I started reading this, I honestly couldn’t stop. It was a great summer read, visualizing the Italian countryside as if it could be in my backyard. The ending of Mari and Emily’s stories independently had my mind blown and I am so thankful I was able to read this book. 5/5 stars! I can’t wait to read more of Hawkins’ books now!

“Houses remember.”

Such a great tagline; I have to wonder if Rachel Hawkins came up with this line and then built not one, but two (or even three, if you count the book-within-a-book “Lilith Rising”) around it. In any case, I’d previously read Hawkins’ two other adult thrillers (“The Wife Upstairs”, which I thought was promising but flawed, and “Reckless Girls”, which I liked a lot, even if the epilogue caught me scratching my head). I feel confident saying that “The Villa” is easily her best thriller so far, building on the strengths of her previous two works in this genre and greatly improving in the areas that were a little weaker.

The plot is fairly simple. Two friends (frenemies?) rent an Italian villa together, which had been the location of a grisly murder in 1974. In present times, the friends are working both on their own books and, to varying degrees, digging into the details behind the 1974 murder. In the 1974 timeline, three musicians, a writer, and a hanger-on/drug dealer spend the summer that the Villa, under the pretense that the two male musicians are working on a collaboration for an album. By the end of the summer, one person ends up dead, two people end up creating great works of art, but not the individuals who were expected to.

I love musician stories from this time period (hello “Almost Famous” and “Daisy Jones and the Six”), so the 1974 timeline really appealed to me. I hope that if this book ever gets made into a movie, they consider casting Sadie Sink as Mari, and I think she’d be perfect for the role.

In the present timeline, Hawkins did a great job capturing the growing tension and distrust between Chess and Em. The “twist” to their relationship did not come as a surprise to me, as I thought it was pretty well telegraphed for a while, but it was heartbreaking to watch Em figure things out.

As a writer, Hawkins’ strengths through all of her books have been her world-building-in-the-real-world and her depiction of frenemy relationships between women. She does not disappoint at all in these aspects with The Villa. I look forward to this book’s release in January 2023 so that I can recommend it to all of my thriller-loving friends.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this book! I was so excited to get approved, and I read the whole thing in two sittings!

Rachel Hawkins' books just get better and better!

The Villa is a tale of two stories, alternating between 1970’’s and 2020’s.
Writers/best friends since childhood Emily and Chess vacation in the Villa to write and reconnect. 50 years previously, another group of friends stayed at the villa to a terrible end. Emily stumbles upon that story, along with hidden clues from inside the Villa and tries to solve that mystery!


The two stories are both compelling, with interesting characters and an amazing setting and Hawkins intertwines them perfectly.

Thank you Netgally for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I wasn't sure I was going to like this book, based on my taste in style and settings for books, but I was wrong. The book goes back and forth between past and present which took me a little while to get into, but it was excellent. The twist was surprising as I thought I had figured out the story already.

I loved this book! This novel had alternating storylines - between main character Emily (present time) and Mari (1970s). Both storylines take place in a beautiful villa in Italy. In the present storyline, Emily escapes the nightmare of her life to try and write another book. However, she goes to the villa with her BFF - who might not actually be who she says she is. In the past, Mari attends the villa with a group of 70s rockers and artists...... and only 3 of them make it out alive.

This book was so intriguing and kept me guessing the entire time! I really loved both storylines and the connection between them in the end.

My only complaint was a few things at the end.... it was so jam packed and I had to re-read some parts to understand what all happened.

Highly recommend this thriller!

This was so good! I love Rachel Hawkins' thrillers, but I think The Villa might be her best one yet. I loved the dual timelines interwoven with news articles, interviews, and passages from Mari's book, and I felt equally engaged with both of the timelines. Combining two timelines plus the story-within-a-story element is really tricky and I don't think I've ever seen it done so well. Several times I thought I knew where the story was going, or that I had guessed the plot twist, but I was always surprised. There was a lot more depth in The Villa than in Reckless Girls or even The Wife Upstairs, and I'm already super excited for her next thriller!

This thriller from Rachel Hawkins is told by shifting between two time periods and with alternating characters. Mari narrates the flashbacks to the 70s, when she is a struggling writer visiting a beautiful Italian villa with her stepsister Lara and musician boyfriend, along with two other friends. During the course of their ill-fated trip, Mari will write a famous best selling horror novel and Lara will compose a well known haunting musical album. In the present, Emily and her best friend (sometimes frenemy) Chess, decide to spend a summer at the very same Italian villa. Emily and Chess are both writers, and Emily is quickly drawn to Mari’s story and the history of the villa. There are many twists and turns as both suspenseful storylines unfold decades apart.

I’ve been a fan of Rachel Hawkins’s books, and this one is far and away my favorite. I loved the dual timelines, the broody female characters, and Emily and Mari’s connection through writing. The setting was perfect, not exactly gothic but creepy in its own way. There were several times that I thought I’d figured out the twists, only to be proven wrong later. The ending was incredible and blew me away in the best possible way. This is easily one of my favorite thrillers I’ve read this year! If you enjoy a twisty vacation thriller full of suspense, you’ve got to pick this one up.

Thank you to Netgalley and St Martin’s Press for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

As soon as you get this book in your hands, clear your schedule because you will not want to put it down! This is impeccably written with intrigue and suspense and captivating characters. The plot twists and turns and pulls you in with every page. Even after finishing the last page, the characters and plot linger with me, as amazing books tend to do. I'd give this book 10 stars if I could! You need to read it!

Hawkins' thrillers never disappoint, per usual.

Emily and Chess, childhood friends, reconnect in an Italian Villa that was famously known as a murder house after an incident in the 70s.

The story travels back and forth between the present with Emily and Chess, and Mari and Lara, sisters who were present during the incident at the villa, that then became famous in their own works thereafter.

I enjoyed Chess and Emily's story in the present, and found myself skimming through the Lara and Mari's story. Although, I thoroughly enjoyed the twists and turns.

This is the third book from Rachel Hawkins that I’ve read and by far my favorite. The up in the air endings of both plot lines were still deeply satisfying even though also part cliff hanger. We all have friends like Chess we can relate to and the thought of Emily surpassing her in the end was satisfaction. There were some abrupt part you had to concede to be enjoy the plot (like Emily forgiving Chess) but overall this was very enjoyable. I had a hard time putting it down and wanted to see where both intertwining plots lead. Part thriller, part mystery and all good.

I have to be honest, I DNF'd The Wife Upstairs, gave a solid 3 stars to Reckless Girls, and now I've read The Villa in a short number of days. I love that Hawkins is writing more and more and you can see their talent growing with each new book. I didn't think I'd say this after The Wife Upstairs, but I'm seriously excited to see what will be written next.

Rachel Hawkins has been a must read author for me. I still find myself thinking about the ending of the Wife Upstairs. When I got the chance to read her next novel, I was thrilled! It definitely lived up to the hype I had created in my head. I really enjoyed this story and found it easy to read the time jumping timeline. I loved that it took place in Italy and the ending really got me! When I added this to my Goodreads, I saw it was inspired by Frankenstein and definitely can see the correlations there. It was a great story and has kept Rachel Hawkins as an author I will pick up every time.

A special thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for letting me read this ebook early, I quite enjoyed it!

Chess and Em are best friends. That's why when one of them faces hardship in their life, the famous one makes the other go on a trip with her. They stay in this beautiful villa in Italy where some not so beautiful things happened there many years earlier. Em revamps her writing as she uncovers secrets in the walls at the villa about a murder that took place there. She also uncovers secrets about her soon to be ex husband. Will history repeat itself in this villa?

When life gives you lemons....

This book has two parts in it. The story of Chess and Em, which is modern day and then the story of Mari, Lara, Pierce, Noel, and Johnnie in 1974--the murder that made this villa famous-ish. I really enjoyed the investigate part of this book as well. Em researches this villa and it's past and finds treasures that have been hidden away. So fun. She also finds out how far her famous best friend will go to save her.

Read if you need to get to Italy(who doesn't), you need a girls weekend, you love wine, and need a light read.

Like other books by Rachel Hawkings, I devoured this book in a day on the beach.. At the beginning I found the back and forth a bit confusing but did figure out what happens about half way through. But the book did what it is supposed to do, provided a perfect escape on a hot summer day. Thanks

Another great book by Rachel Hawkins. I loved and hated all the characters. They were all complex and relatable. Emily’s struggle to make ends meet while her ex is trying to grab as much of her money as he can, was frustrating and heartbreaking. How was she so broke?!?
And Chess was so wonderfully fake. We all have known someone like that, who is insincere, perennially late, rather selfish, and yet everyone else finds them practically perfect in every way.
The dual time line was confusing for a bit, but very enjoyable once I got the hang of things. The description of the Villa full of sex, drugs, & rock and roll… it felt so normal, like no big deal to spend a whole summer with a rock star, a wannabe, and a drug dealer. . Again, everyone was so likable, but so irritating. Flawed humans, all of them. I enjoyed reading how everything played out.

I was intrigued by the way The Villa moved back and forth between two times and two storylines. I found myself looking for similarities between the two stories, and the ending left me wondering just what had actually happened ... in both times.