You know those books where you get to trust that the characters are telling the truth and you can trust in story they are telling? Yeah… this book isn’t that. The Villa was a story about a story about a book.. if that makes sense? This book was crazy in a good way and though at times the characters were a bit much, I couldn’t help but be captured into this book as I wondered just how it would end and just how much crazier it could get.

This story alternated between two timelines, 1974 and the present. I found the present story more interesting and easier to follow about two childhood friends now in their ‘30’s, Emily and Chess, and their friendship and girls trip to Italy to stay at a villa. The villa had a reputation as a murder house due to events that took place in 1974. This was a quick read that I found interesting. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

The Villa

🍋Review - ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5🍋

📘The Villa by Rachel Hawkins
🗓️Pub Date: 1/03/22 (out now!)

This story takes place over two timelines in a Villa in Italy. Emily is an author of cozy mysteries but seems to be in a writing slump since her husband, Matt, filed for divorce. Her best friend, Chess, is also a well known author and has been Emily’s best friend since they were kids.

When Chess invites Emily on a trip to Italy to stay in a famous villa, Emily agrees to go. Hoping to get some writing done on her next book in her Petal Bloom series, Emily ends up focusing on the villa she is staying in. Villa Aestas (or The Murder House) is the location of a murder of an up and coming musician that happened in 70’s. After doing some research and uncovering some letters, Emily believes she has an idea for a new book.

This story takes place over two timelines. It follows Emily and Chess during their stay in the villa but it also follows Mari, girlfriend to the man that ends up murdered in the 70’s. During Mari’s timeline, we see what happens during the summer a group of artists stayed together. Spending their time getting high, having sex, creating music, and everything leading up to the night of Pierce’s murder.

While the story really pulled me in, it fell a little flat for me. I didn’t find any of the characters very likeable. Chess really irritated me for about 95% of the book, while Emily just seemed very naive. Mari and her sister also had a very strange relationship.

Overall, I enjoyed the story and I was really invested in both timelines. The end is where it really fell short for me. I felt like there was a decent build up and then abruptly ended.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

she does it again! rachel hawkins has quickly become an auto-buy author for me and let me tell you why: she knows how to keep you on the edge of your seat! i knew something was up throughout most of the book, and thought i had guessed the twist right away (ok i kinda did) but then just like that, she throws another one in. her books never end the way you expect them to, and the villa is no different. the italian setting was *chef’s kiss* because there’s nothing that makes me more uneasy than something going wrong in a foreign country. if you’re looking for a fast-paced thriller that will throw you for a loop, look no further!

*thank you to the publisher for my advanced eARC in exchange for an honest review*

Another stunning thriller by Rachel Hawkins! I thoroughly enjoyed this suspense thriller set in a gorgeous villa in Italy. It has a few kinks - pacing, muddled plotlines and some ambitious plot points that didn't quite hit the mark - but for what it is, I really enjoyed it.

Thanks to NetGalley and the author Rachel Hawkins for advance copy for honest review.

My review is a day late but this book does not run short! Rachel Hawkins is a go to author for me. She write some crazy brained ideas that all come together in the end. She just draws you in. Well written.

The Villa is about an escape, and chance of a lifetime trip to beautiful Italy. She goes with her childhood friend Jess, now Chess, to a fancy villa with historic value as it was used by a former rockstar. As we learn, there was a murder that happened decades earlier in the summer of '74. Emily and Chess now start uncovering secrets from the past and before, but there is more than meets the eye. As all the clues come to light, they have to find out what happened that summer before it happens again. Highly recommend!

Emily and Chess are childhood friends who have lead different lives. Chess has become a worldly famous self-help writer and influencer. Emily is going through a difficult divorce. She writes cozy mysteries, not what she started out wanting to write. She also moved back home with her parents after being sick and leaving her husband. When Chess offers a summer in Italy (I mean, who would say no to that!) at a private villa. Emily says yes without really thinking twice about it. The villa is the site of an infamous murder in the 70s involving musicians, drugs, women. Emily finds herself immediately drawn to the story and her writer's block disappears as she looks further into the murder.

We are also reading Mari's story about that time in the villa. The wildness of youth and the 70s with sex and rock and roll. She was so young, just 16 when she first gets involved with Pierce Sheldon. She is dealing with her relationship with her stepsister Lara too. Mari wrote a horror novel titled Lillith Rising and became famous after the murder in the villa, while Lara has a big selling album titled Aestas after.

As the stories entwine together, there are so many revelations about the time before the murder and about Emily and Chess's relationship. The ending is the icing on the cake, didn't see that twist.

A great thriller to start off the new year of reading for me. I love how Ms. Hawkins kept changing the way I viewed all the characters throughout the story.

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for an advance copy for review.

This was such a wonderful book! As expected from Rachel Hawkins this book took me on twists and turns the entire time!

Emily and Chess (Jessica) are best friends but they've drifted apart over time. They've been through so much together, but now, in their 30s, Chess is a very successful, and very famous self-help author. Emily's marriage is crumbling, and she's struggling to finish her ninth cozy mystery, which are moderate sellers, at best. Chess invites Emily to spend the summer with her in Italy at The Villa, a house where a gruesome murder took place in the 1970s.

Lara and Mari were step-sisters who stayed at The Villa with a famous rock star. Lara ended up being a famous singer-songwriter, and Mari wrote one of the greatest horror novels of all time. What really happened is a mystery, and Emily feels herself drawn to this story. She's determined to figure out what really happened and spends her time looking for clues in Mari's horror novel.

While Emily and Chess try to reconnect during the summer, the stress and tension their relationship has gone through prove too much at times. When things come to a head, secrets are revealed and tempers flare. At times the modern story eerily mimics the past of what happened in the house.

The structure took a little getting used to (a story within a story within a book) but once the many voices in this novel were established it was easy to get completely submerged into what was happening in the past and the present. This is a clever domestic psychological thriller that left me marveling at the character arcs, and the way the ending played out. psychological thriller

THE VILLA By Rachel Hawkins

Thank you to St Martin's Press and NetGalley for the e-arc!

MY RATING:
⭐️⭐️⭐️
I liked it

SUMMARY:
Emily and Chess are childhood best friends, even though they've both gone their own ways professionally. Emily's life pretty much falls apart, so Chess suggests the two women go to Italy for the summer and rent a villa to write. The villa that Chess and Emily rent is the same villa that rockstar Noel Gordon rented in the 70's, where a famous murder happened. Emily is intrigued by the story of the murder, and soon becomes engrossed in what happened in the villa years ago.

MY THOUGHTS:
I don't like Chess. Sorry not sorry. She had Rachel Hollis vibes and wasn't really a good friend to Emily and I'm not here for it. There were two plot lines- the 70's and present time, but they felt a little disconnected. It was more suspenseful than thriller, and the ending was pretty predictable. This was my third Rachel Hawkins book and probably I'd probably rate it at the bottom out of the three.

Happy Pub Day to The Villa by @ladyhawkins!! This was a really fun read.

What I liked:
•fast read
•two engaging timelines-I preferred the past timeline, it was very juicy but I was still eager to see what Em and Chess were up to.
•the inside look at what time and success can do to a friendship.

If you’re looking for a gothic-y women’s fiction, this is a great option!

The book switches around between last and present and points of view so much that it was a little hard and annoying to keep track of. Majority of the time I enjoyed the parts of the past and hearing from Mary until Emily starts writing The Villa and finding the clues left behind there. Then I felt more inclined to find out what was going on with her.

I think the lack of sense as to why these two stories were connected made it hard in the beginning to draw me in. But like I said once Emily begins writing I was more invested but it took a while for that to happen which is why this wasn’t a favorite of mine but had such potential to be. The setting and back story and plot was great there was just a lack of building blocks to get there and an ease of transition between the past and present. Also my friend had said she didn’t like any of the characters and I have to say I agreed. There wasn’t any draw to any of these characters.

Out now! [Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review!]

Rating: 4/5 stars

Emily and Chess have been best friends since childhood, but their relationship has become a bit strained. When Chess suggests a summer in an Italian villa—a villa that was the site of an infamous murder in the 1970s, moreover—secrets begin to unravel across two timelines.

I am absolutely obsessed with the story of the creation of FRANKENSTEIN—for anyone who doesn’t know, Lord Byron, Percy and Mary Shelley, Mary’s stepsister Claire, and John Polidori all stayed together in Switzerland for a summer, where Mary would ultimately write FRANKENSTEIN as the result of the party determining to each write a ghost story—so when I heard that Rachel Hawkins was writing a novel featuring a 1970s retelling of that very real summer (albeit with some added murder), it instantly became one of my most-anticipated reads of 2023.

Fortunately, I really enjoyed most of the book. I’ve seen some mixed reviews, and I understand any criticism that calls this book slow-moving, but I found it to be genuinely brilliant in terms of form, writing style, and the use of perspective and tone. The plot was interesting and I enjoyed the dual timeline, and the use of multiple forms of media (news clippings, etc) combined with the 1970s musician sections gave me vibes reminiscent of DAISY JONES & THE SIX.

All of that said, I ultimately took a star off the end because I just wasn’t sold on the ending. I thought I’d figured out where it was headed, but then things took a turn I didn’t expect, and the book ended in what was, to me, a pretty unsatisfying place. Still, if you’re a fan of historical/literary inspired novels and up for a somewhat slower burn, I would absolutely recommend THE VILLA.

Recommended to anyone, but especially if you like: retellings-but-make-them-history; meditations on friendship; slow-burn Gothic suspense

CW: Child death; drug/alcohol abuse; murder/blood; suicide (off-page).

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

Two alternating story lines

Emily is a down on her luck writer. Her husband has left her, she is suffering from a mysterious illness. Her greedy husband wants half of her proceeds from her series Petal. Her best friend Chess is also a writer of self help books. She is an over the top guru with many followers and is relatively wealthy and famous. Chess invites Emily to spend six weeks at Villa Aestas Orvieto Italy. Villa Aestas was formally known as Villa Rosato and The Murder House. They both hope the vacation will inspire their writing. Emily soon abandons her fluff series and begins writing about what happened at the house 50 years ago.

The summer of 1974- Mari, her boyfriend Pierce and step sister Lara join famous musician Noel and his dealer Johnny and the Villa. Noel and Pierce plan on making music together. Mari, whose parents were both famous writers, hopes to focus on writing a sequel to her mother’s novel. Add in sex, drugs and drinking and murder and it is a wild summer.

I really enjoyed this book and the dual story lines.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4772485893

This is a quick, propulsive read with intertwining story lines, 40+ years apart. Set mainly at an Italian villa and featuring two friends/frenemies, the book focuses on the protagonist's interest in the villa's recent history, including the 1970s murder of the member of a group of bohemian writers and musicians. The characters' motivations and actions were not always clear or consistent, and the coda seemed unnecessary, but nevertheless, this kept my interest throughout. 3.5 stars, rounded up.

Here’s my review: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I loved listening to the audiobook and reading the book at the same time! The audiobook narrators did such a great job of making the story come alive with different voices for the characters and lots of animation while telling the story. I really liked the story and found the plot intriguing. The main characters were relatable so it was easy to get caught up in their drama. There are so many parallels between Mari, Emily, and the house and so much foreshadowing in the story that I couldn’t put the book down because I wanted to know how it all ended! At the end, I still questioned what really happened.

I didn’t care for all the swear words popping up regularly throughout the story. I thought it was a little much. I also didn’t think the story was all that suspenseful. In fact, it was pretty tame which is good for readers that don’t usually enjoy a gothic suspense read. I also felt the ending was a little anticlimactic. I guess I was expecting more of a shocking reveal.

Despite my dislikes, I would still recommend reading this book if you enjoy a good mystery. If you do read it, let me know your thoughts!

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Macmillian Audio for the ARC and audiobook in exchange for my honest review!

I enjoyed the present day story more than the flashbacks. I really could not bring myself to care about the rock and rollers but I do feel that if there was more to their story I would have loved it. I did love the present day story and the dynamic between the two friends. The writing was also well done.

I’m a big Rachel Hawkins fan and couldn’t wait to get my hands on this one. Let me tell you, it did not disappoint! It kept me on my toes the whole time. I loved that I was basically reading two stories in one, as I always enjoy dual timelines. She did this one so well. You’ll be kept wondering. If you like thrillers this is for you!

This was an entertaining read full of scandals. I enjoyed how The Villa’s many secrets added depth to the story. Both timelines held my attention (1970s and present day). I also enjoyed the twist at the end. This will be a title that I hand sell at my store.

<b>The past timeline explores creativity, love, betrayal, and unexpected loops of consequence--which are echoed hauntingly in the present timeline as Chess and Emily's desire for success tests the bonds of their volatile decades-long friendship.</b>

<i>The Villa</i> is the newest novel (published January 3) by Rachel Hawkins, author of <i>The Wife Upstairs</i> and <i>Reckless Girls.</i>

The story is gothic suspense told in two timelines, both at the same Italian villa, where dark mysteries and wicked turns abound.

Emily and Chess were childhood friends and were once as close as sisters--sisters who fight and snarkily undermine each other, then unfailingly reunite.

Beautiful, flighty Chess is a popular, single self-help author and influencer, while Emily, who is emerging from a mysterious long-term illness and in the middle of a contentious divorce, is the author of a successful series of cozy mysteries--but she just can't get her tenth book going. The stresses and pulls on their time have caused them to grow apart, so a writing vacation together at Villa Aestas sounds like the perfect way to reconnect.

But Emily is immediately reminded how often Chess leaves her in the lurch, and if she's honest with herself, she's not sure she can truly trust her.

As Emily digs into the villa's complicated and dark history and delves into the past, the growing tensions between Emily and Chess threaten their bonds of friendship.

Hawkins takes us back and forth from the decades-old mystery and deaths at the villa to the growing unease in the present between two women whose relationship seems destined to end in terrible consequences.

I was more solidly hooked on the past timeline because Mari felt like the most well-developed character in the book. As in Hawkins's <i>Reckless Girls,</i> I found myself disliking many of the characters, and this seems to be deliberate on the author's part, as the characters' various destructive, silly, and dangerously selfish behaviors lead to Big Trouble in both timelines here.

The "She is inevitable" references unfailingly reminded me of bad-guy Thanos's catchphrase "I am inevitable," and the Marvel mental images jarred me from this story each time that line appeared.

The end portion of the book introduces doubts about the facts as presented and offers haunting, unexpected consequences.

I received a prepublication copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley and St. Martin's Press.