this novel was actually really interesting, I did end up opting to listen to the audiobook and I did absolutely loved it. It was a really fun and fast paced triller. I would recommend it to anyone who is just getting into thrillers. It is mildly predictable for people who read thrillers often but it is still enjoyable.

THE VILLA is, without a doubt, my favourite of Rachel Hawkins' work thus far. Give me a gothic thriller any day, but especially give me the ones that achieve the deliciously dark tone and vibe that Rachel was so successful in creating here. The ending wasn't a win for me, but I immensely enjoyed the journey getting there.

Told in alternating timelines between 1974 and present day, we hear from the perspectives of two women reclaiming their power, going for (literary) gold, and exploring the parameters of some seriously unstable relationships. Add in Rachel's incredible ability to create a perfect tension-filled scene, and you've got yourself your first read for January 2023.

Fun tidbit: The Villa is "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"!!

♡Huge thank you to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for approving the egalley for review!

More of a domestic drama than a true thriller or mystery, this was a quick and easy read. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC!

While I would have preferred to stick in the present timeline because the cat and mouse game was just SO fun, I appreciated what Hawkins was doing with the past timeline, and she definitely made it all come together in the end. A fun read!

"Houses never forget" - I guess they don't! I enjoyed this story that intertwined between the past and present and how the past seemed to come back to haunt the future, but there were no paranormal vibes at all! I loved reading about the setting and I could actually imagine myself there and possibly being a part of the story! I did enjoy the few twists towards the end! I'd recommend to others!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this ARC! I didn’t know what to expect with this book when I first started reading, but I really enjoyed it. The time hopping POV between present day Emily and 1974 Mari took me a bit to get used to and understand how it all tied together, but once I did, I was captivated. I enjoyed the different perspectives and the characters that the POVs gave rise to. The characters felt real, and their selfishness was made almost tangible.

The Villa is a story of betrayal, revenge, love, selfishness, and the binds that tie people together in an instant. This is a thriller/ mystery that is told in a way that I haven’t read yet, and it gives it that much more believability to the story.

I posted my initial reaction to my Instagram on 1/3, but I will be posting my actual review at the end of the month. I will share the link once I do.

The Villa was a pretty good thriller that read a lot like historical fiction to me. It blended history, music, and mystery together in an Italian villa. Overall I felt like this was an enjoyable read and I flew through it. There were several different twists and turns. I also love a dual POV and this one was set 40 years apart in the Villa. The middle was a bit slow, but Hawkins landed the ending. Overall, I would recommend this book if you like domestic suspense with some history thrown in!

The Villa is a suspenseful book that blends the past with the current lives of friends. This is my second book to read by Rachel Hawkins. I loved The Wife Upstairs and equally enjoyed The Villa. I highly recommend.

The Villa is another thriller by Rachel Hawkins that has you riveted to the page to find out what's going to happen next! It's told in dual timelines of the present day and the 1970s. Each timeline features guests at an Italian villa who should be having the time of their lives but instead get caught up in drama and maybe even ghosts. Best friends, Emily and Chess, are both authors. Chess invites Emily to join her in Italy for a retreat. They can both focus on their current works in progress and enjoy the Italian countryside. Emily joins Chess not knowing that the villa has a hunted history involving musicians from the 1970s and the death of one of the musicians. Read and enjoy!

I really enjoyed this thriller. I liked how the different stories, past and present, intertwined throughout the book. It allowed the reader/listener to see both sides.

This novel takes you on a ride through decades in alternating timelines and books within the book. Off and on best friends Chess and Emily escape to a villa in Italy for a break from some personal drama, a chance to reconnect as friends, and a quiet place for writing. The only challenge is the villa has a murderous history and Emily soon finds herself thrust in the middle as she yearns to piece together the notes left behind to uncover the events of the villa’s past. Throughout the novel she struggles with whether she can trust Chess and the annoyance of her soon-to-be ex who seems determined to profit from her writing career forever.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for this ARC. This is my honest review.

The Villa is a fun mystery that takes place in a beautiful Italian villa (obvs) that jumps between past and present. In current time, two longtime friends spend a summer in Italy to relax and work on their books. In the earlier times, the villa was home to a rock n roll party crowd and we know that tragedy will strike. The book weaves those stories together, though I found myself much more interested in the present day story. Still, it kept me reading and guessing and overall, I really enjoyed it.

I loved this book so much! I sped through it in a day. While I do like narratives that go back and forth between characters and times, I definitely liked the Mari storyline better. I thought the ending was thought provoking, the idea of how important closure is for people, even if it’s not the ending they want, it still needs to make some kind of sense. I’ve read Reckless Girls and The Wife Upstairs, but this is my fave of hers so far. Will be looking forward to more from her. Thank you to Netgalley for the eARC!!

I love a beautiful house with a mysterious rock and roll history and this one has a murderous tale to tell. Set in two different time periods there are twists and turns, betrayals, and damaging secrets that come to light in both storylines. The characters are very interesting, though not always likeable, and I enjoyed the slow burn tension while finding out the truth. It read more like a suspense novel to me than a thriller, and I loved the Gothic mystery vibes. The audiobook is a delight and the narrators did a fantastic job.

“The house that changed the course of her life. All of their lives, forever.”

The Villa is a slow burn thriller that follows Emily and Chess as they write and spark creativity… but the longer they spend together and in the villa, the more tension arises. Soon an intense rivalry sparks… what happens when tensions build all under one roof? It can be deadly.

I enjoyed my read of The Villa, but I believe I could have enjoyed it more had I known what I would be reading. Somehow I got the idea this would be a haunted house type thriller, so I kept waiting for events to amp up, but it never happened. This is a perfectly nice story about two friends, both writers, whose old bonds of friendship are being tested. Chess has inexplicably found great success as a self help guru/writer. Meanwhile, Emily's marriage has crumbled and she is finding her next cozy mystery impossible to write.

Chess offers Emily the opportunity to accompany her on a summer writing sojourn at a beautiful villa in Italy. As it happens, this villa was the site of some rock and roll mayhem and murder some fifty years before. A famous musician had rented the villa and asked four other friends to accompany him there. Three are musicians, one is a want-to-be musician, and one, Mari, writes a cult favorite horror story during her time at the villa. Emily is captivated by the history, and rereads the book, Lilith Rising, that was written at the Villa. She finds clues in the story to help explain what actually happened the night of the murder. This encourages Emily to start a book, and as she begins to write, her gut tells her she has a winner.

This is an interesting story told in two viewpoints, Emily's in modern times, and Mari's in the 1970s. At first I was less interested in Mari's story, but gradually they evened out for me. There is plenty of intrigue in the story. Does Chess have ulterior motives for inviting Emily to Italy? Will Emily's ex-husband quit harassing her? Will Emily solve the mystery of what really happened at Villa Rosata the night of the murders? There are a couple of surprises towards the end of the book. But if you're expected full on, first-person horror drama, you're in for a letdown. It's as if a gauzy curtain has been placed over the villa. Terrible events are hinted at, but they are softened and told from afar, not up close and nitty-gritty. At first I was disappointed by this. The story was less gripping than I expected. But after awhile, I realized this style did serve the way the author was relaying the story.

So at the end of the read, I have mixed feelings. The Villa certainly kept me interested and intrigued and I finished it much more quickly than I have been finishing books recently. But I was slightly let down by the distance I felt from both the characters and the plot line. I think had I gone into it knowing it was (in my opinoin) more literary fiction and less thriller, I would have appreciated it more. It's a 3.5 for me, but I'm rounding up as I think the writing was good and the plotline was interesting. Overall, an enjoyable read!

This is my second Rachael Hawkins book and there is something unique about her books. The Villa is a dual timeline story with lots of twist and turns.

I feel like I need to be careful what I say so I do not give anything away but this is a story you need to read and make sure you pay attention to all aspects! There are connections throughout the whole book.

One think Rachael Hawkins is great at is taking a beautiful place you want to visit and absolutely making it horrifying and dark. In this case the beautiful house in Italy which sounds like a dream until it is turned in a nightmare.

I want to thank Netgalley and St. Martins Press for my honest review

Another striking cover, another incredible setting, so much of this was actually working SO WELL and yet…once we get to the 60% mark or so, it’s a hard record scratch moment that this just truly never recovered from.

I thought Emily’s disaster dumpster fire life was interesting, even her friendship with Chess was interesting because it does mimic those toxic friendships we’ve all had. Once they get to the Villa and we see how the dual timelines intersect at the same place, it was super engaging and i was in full detective mode. While the past timeline was never that interesting on its own, i liked the way it fueled Emily in the present timeline.

Where this really just nosedived was when the tension between Chess and Emily reaches a high point only for the past timeline to take hold. That switch over from the deliciously mean girls-esque drama happening in the present killed the momentum. Not to mention that shift to the past is filled with so much dry, boring detail that didn’t add anything to the mystery.

Once we finally get back to the present timeline, that tension just doesnt pick up where it left off the way it should have and ultimately the ending was more tame than I expected. This isn’t the female empowerment journey you expect, and ultimately I feel like one character in particular skated by with too much. I don’t think friendship like that, that destructive and vindictive, even if it is between two women, trumps all.

Sadly, this is likely my last from Hawkins, if a popcorn thriller like this ultimately can’t give me a deliciously fun ending at least, what is even the point?

Rating: 2.5/5, rating up to 3.

I loved the premise of this novel and was looking forward to being transported off the page by a thriller within a thriller. Initially, the novel didn't disappoint. Chess and Em made intriguing best friends even if it seemed unlikely that they'd stay friends for so long. The past story was also intriguing at first, but as the intertwining stories progressed, they both got silly in their shallow obviousness. I guessed the ending about halfway through and the only reason I kept on reading was to see if I had guessed right -- and I had. Sigh.

Having said that, many people will like this book. A Hawkins thriller is a quick read. This would be a good choice for a long flight or sitting in a slow waiting room.

I had high expectations for The Villa, but unfortunately they fell flat. I enjoyed the time hops, but had a hard time finding any connection to the characters. The "big murder" was incredibly anticlimactic and left me wondering why I should even care. The Villa won't dissuade me from reading any of Ms. Hawkins future books, but I may not rush to get to them.

I read an ARC from NetGalley. All opinions are my own and no reflection of receiving an ARC.