I really enjoyed reading The Villa! I loved how it went back and forth from the events in 1974 that occurred within the villa to what was happening in present time in the same setting and how the characters of the past paralleled with the characters of the present. It has a decent twist, as well! I would definitely recommend giving this book a try.

I enjoyed The Villa by Rachel Hawkins tremendously it was a great journey through two different stories and time periods.

Two best friends from childhood who have both grown up to be authors travel to a villa in Italy for inspiration.
They find when they get their a mysterious murder that took place there at the villa in the 1970s that seemed to never seemed resolved. This seemed to intrigue them both to research it more.

If you loved Rachel Hawkins other books as well so I think you should love this as well.
I would to show my appreciation to St Martin's Press and Netgalley for giving me this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Rachel Hawkins has done it again. She knows how to take you on a journey with so many twists and turns. There are two different stories happening at two different time periods that intertwine beautifully. This is a must read for any fan of suspense, highly recommend.

In 1974, rock and roll star Noel Gordon rents Villa Rosato and invites a few people along to write music and just hang out in Italy. Pierce is an up and coming musician who brings his girlfriend, Mari, and her stepsister Lara. At the end of the trip, one has written a best selling horror book, one writes a platinum album and one is dead.

In 2023, Chess and Emily book a girls trip to the same villa, now named Villa Aestas, to write their books and just spend time together. Emily starts to look into the past murder at the Villa and secrets start to come to light. As a result, their friendship is changed forever.

It is a slow burn mystery that I thought was interesting in the beginning. It has gothic vibes with sex, drugs and rock and roll and complicated relationships. I love a dual timeline! This one lost me at the end though. I kind of feel this way about Rachel Hawkins books in general and enjoy her Erin Sterling books much more. If you are a fan of Rachel Hawkins, then I think you will enjoy this one:)

Thank you to @netgalley and the publisher for an eARC for review.

Highly enjoyed this Rachel Hawkins read.

Two lifetime best friends and authors visit a villa in Italy where a murder took place many years before. They become intrigued by the story of previous tenants and want to discover the truth about the house and its story.

I wanted to read this book because I loved The Wife Upstairs and liked Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins in the past. This one was unique. I appreciated the gothic murder storyline. I wanted to know the secrets of the Villa as well. I was intrigued by the author's friendship with each other, there differing life paths, and the fact that they have come together to create a new story. It was the perfect amount of mysterious.

Another in the all-too-common dual timeline stories being published these days. In the present, we have Emily, the author of a series of cozy mysteries, is a writing slump partially brought on by a mysterious illness and exacerbated by a contentious divorce with a greedy soon-to-be ex and her bestie Chess, a social media influencer and author/speaker of self-help non-fiction books that have propelled her to the top tier of authors. Chess proposes Emily join her for the summer in Italy at a luxurious Villa in Orvieto and Emily accepts.

While exploring the house (which is much less creepy than you’d expect in a book labelled a gothic horror tale), Emily discovers clues about the second timeline – 1974- and the summer when Mari, her step-sister Lara and her married lover/musician Pierce spent time at the same villa at the invitation of famous rock-and-roller Noel and his hanger-on drug dealer Johnnie. By the end of their stay, someone is killed and someone is jailed but the two women have let loose their creative juices: Mari has penned an infamous horror feminist novel and Lara has written an album of sad songs to stand alongside Carole King’s Tapestry.

I must admit that many of the actions of the two women in present day seemed implausible and downright selfish. I couldn’t imagine how this friendship had lasted, much less been such an important relationship to each of them. Emily was somewhat more relatable but even so, I found myself frustrated with her lack of agency and willingness to put up with so much from both her husband and her best friend. And as for the group of rock-and-rollers, this whole story-within-a-story brought home how subservient women often are to the men in their lives, stifling their own creativity and needs for the sake of love.

This narrative was all right but didn’t move me in any strong way. It may appeal to Hawkins’ fans but for me, it struck me as pedestrian.

My thanks for Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with the ARC of this novel.

Although they were inseparable growing up, Emily and Chess have begun to grow apart in their 30s.  Now Chess is a bestselling self-help author and influencer while Emily is going through a nasty divorce. They hope to reconnect on a girls' trip to a gorgeous Italian villa that was the setting of a celebrity murder and the inspiration for a bestselling horror novel and a platinum album. The further Emily tries to solve the long-ago murder, the more Chess becomes uncomfortable and their hidden secrets come spilling out.

Though the luxurious Italian setting was utterly perfect, The Villa didn't have the same unputdownable factor that made Reckless Girls a bestseller last year. The beginning is slow, going light on suspense and heavy on drama. Although I enjoyed the past timeline, the unlikeable characters made this an easy-to-read, yet forgettable mystery.

Rachel Hawkins does it again. Her novels are so clever, thought provoking, and engaging. I loved the jumping between time periods within the same Villa, with characters constantly guessing where they stand with one another!

This was absolutely my most favorite Rachel Hawkins book yet! Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s press for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Told in two timelines, this book was filled with twists and turns that kept me riveted from beginning to end.

Emily and Chess are best friends who have a slightly tenuous relationship with each other. Both are successful authors in their own right but their lives run on two different paths. Recently divorced and struggling to complete her next book, when Emily gets an opportunity from Chess to spend 6 weeks in a villa in Italy, she jumps at the chance to get away from her soon to be ex-husband and her writers block. The villa that they end up staying in also happens to be the site of a 1974 murder involving an international rock star and 4 other guests.

As Emily explores the house, we get the back story of the 1974 guests and what happened leading up to the murder. Emily's exploration inspires her to divert from the book she was writing and to focus on a non-fiction book. Unfortunately, what she doesn't see coming, is how much the story of the 1974 house guests is actually paralleling events in her own life.

Overall, I really enjoyed the simultaneous stories and the interwoven relationships among the characters in both timelines. The 1974 timeline, especially, gave me Daisy Jones feels. I felt Emily's unexplained sickness was unnecessary to the storyline but, on the whole, I thought this was a suspenseful thriller that kept me guessing until the end.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5118141154

"As kids, Emily and Chess were inseparable. But by their 30s, their bond has been strained by the demands of their adult lives. So when Chess suggests a girls trip to Italy, Emily jumps at the chance to reconnect with her best friend.

Villa Aestas in Orvieto is a high-end holiday home now, but in 1974, it was known as Villa Rosato, and rented for the summer by a notorious rock star, Noel Gordon. In an attempt to reignite his creative spark, Noel invites up-and-coming musician, Pierce Sheldon to join him, as well as Pierce’s girlfriend, Mari, and her stepsister, Lara. But he also sets in motion a chain of events that leads to Mari writing one of the greatest horror novels of all time, Lara composing a platinum album––and ends in Pierce’s brutal murder."

Told from Emily's point of view in current day and flashing back to Mari's from 1974, this book was a wild ride. Both Emily and Mari came to Villa Aestas to work on their writing, and both end up writing something other than they originally intended. Emily finds herself obsessed with Mari's story and what truly happened in 1974, and the more she digs into the mystery, the stranger that Chess behaves. What is Chess up to? What happened that summer in 1974? Does a house remember?
This book was twisty and full of mystery. I was pulled into the story from page one and couldn't stop listening. While I don't think that the twists and turns were big surprises, they were interesting and fun to follow along. The book is super fast paced and the audiobook is well done. If you're looking for a book that will grab your attention from page one and take you on a twisty ride, this one is for you.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this ALC.
Schedule Release Date: January 3, 2023.

I had such high hopes for this book, having loved all of Rachel Hawkins's previous thriller books. The atmospheric setup of an old Italian villa was perfect, but something about the story line just fell flat. I liked the infusion of an old story into the book, so the timeline was dual POV, but maybe that was too much for the reader to stay invested in the suspense part. I feel like maybe the book was rushed to be published, and just didn't excite me like I wanted it to. Thank you for the review copy, regardless. I do appreciate the opportunity to read it early!

I'm usually a big fan of Rachel Hawkins, but this wasn't my favorite.. I knew exactly where the book was headed and the book was slow at the beginning. Chess was a completely toxic friend from the beginning and Em was very gullible to think that Chess was actually a good friend. It's obvious to the reader Chess's true character. I did like the back and forth between Mari's story and Em's. The story ended with everything tied up and I felt like the author did a good job of bringing everything to completion.

This was a really fun interpretation on the vacation/summer get-away trope. It's different and engaging and incredibly authentic. I really enjoyed the two different timelines, it put a-lot into perspective and of course, tied everything together. Just as well, i find it intriguing reading about writers, and so this storyline did peak my interest entirely. The murder mystery and haunted house aspect added with the crazy 1970s rock stars on drugs and so on was really interesting as well. One thing i will mention that i enjoyed less was that at times i felt like too much was going on. Too many narratives and too many great topics and subjects meshing when really, they shouldn't. Nonetheless i liked this!

I have read three of Rachel Hawkins’ novels, and all three of them I have read in a day. These three consist of The Wife Upstairs, Reckless Girls, and now, The Villa. This one didn’t let me down!

This story alternates between timelines, telling the perspectives of Mari in 1974 and Emily in present day. Both of these characters spend time in a villa in Orviento, Italy, and the two timelines describe the differences and similarities of their stays; Mari arrives with her stepsister, one of the most famous rock n roll musicians of the time, and two other men, while Emily spends the summer writing and relaxing in the villa with her best friend, Chess.

While I would’ve liked this novel to be a little more intense and thrilling, this slow burn was a satisfying read that left me compelled and eager to know the end. I wasn’t able to identify with any of the characters, but this didn’t affect my reading experience much because I enjoyed the overall setting of the novel enough to not really care about the characters. In some ways, this book reminded me a little of Daisy Jones and the Six but also of the second season of The White Lotus. I’m not able to fully explain this, but it’s just the experience I had while reading. I enjoyed that this was an easy read, and although it didn’t create the suspense and creepiness I would have hoped for, I liked that there was still anticipation building throughout the plot.

Thank you Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for this arc!

4 stars

The Villa follows two alternating timelines: present-day, as Emily embarks on a summer vacation to Orvieto, Italy with her best friend Chess for a writing retreat of sorts, and the past, digging into the story of the fateful summer of 1974 in which an up-and-coming musician Pierce Sheldon, his girlfriend Mari, and her sister Lara were invited to stay the summer at a famous rock star's Italian villa. That summer in 1974 ended in the brutal murder of Pierce Sheldon and the story might be just the thing to get Emily out of her writing block. Throughout their time at the villa, Emily stumbles upon secrets from the past, yet revelations from the present also come to play. Will the villa claim another victim by the end of the summer? After all, houses remember.

I thought that the alternating storylines were so interesting as the book switched between the present and the past. I especially found the parallels between the two timeframes so intriguing and I thought it added the perfect amount of suspense to the story. I found myself theorizing what would happen so many times yet the book did not end how I expected which honestly skewed my feelings at the end.

HOWEVER, I think that this was purposeful by the author and meant to make the audience contemplate if the conclusion that was reached was actually true, given the context clues of the past and other small things that are described in the background throughout. I think that this more open-ended conclusion which may leave readers questioning what they have just read actually lead me to enjoy the story much more.

Overall I thought this was such a fun, suspenseful read, especially with the alternating storylines and the open-ended ending that leaves the reader questioning. Definitely recommend picking this book up!

If you've ever felt insecure in a friendship and you can't tell if it's your fault or not, this book is for you!!

If you like feminist murder this book is for you!!

If you like Tuscan villas this book is for you!!

On the surface this doesn't seem like anything suuuper special but I am so glad I got to read the ARC - thank you to the publisher for an e-arc and Libro FM for an audio copy, they worked great together.

I just felt as though both the present narrative and the past timeline were equally compelling, which is so rare, and I couldn't stop thinking about the story. Everything was so well executed and this is my second 5 star thriller by Rachel Hawkins!!

I really enjoyed this book. It actually got me out of my slump. It reads more like a Gothic novel than a thriller to me, but I love Gothic novels so it was great.

I think you do need to suspends belief some, but because it is so entertaining it didn't really bother me. All I know is that I couldn't be Emily.

If you are looking for an entertaining read that is quite different from other books I've read then this is a good one. But as I have pointed out I love everything Rachel Hawkins writes.

I had high expectations for this one but sadly I was pretty let down. I think this book is much more drama based than thriller and could’ve liked it more if I had those expectations going into it.

4 stars!

I really enjoyed The Villa. I like the past and present pint of views so that we can see how the story of the past unfolds and leads to certain “mishaps” in the present. There were times the women in this book were annoying and I wanted to scream at all of them lol. More so Mari, Lara & Chess more than Emily. But all in all they were good friends/sisters. But overall it wasn’t a put off for me, I still liked the story.

I look forward to reading more books by Rachel Hawkins, she never disappoints!!

2.5-3/5 Stars

The Villa is an intriguing slow-burn suspense/thriller novel loosely inspired by Fleetwood Mac and the Manson Murders, along with the time that Mary Shelley spent at Lake Geneva while writing Frankenstein.

I found this story to be intriguing but I didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Hawkins last book, Reckless Girls. The book started off interesting but I wasn't a fan of the dual timelines, mainly because I found Mari's storyline to be a bit boring and all over the place. The middle of the book dragged on for me and while I was curious to see how Chess and Emily's timeline played out, I got to a point where I didn't overly care about any of the characters because they were so unlikeable. That said, the alternating timelines, dual POV and story within a story added great depth and came together strongly in the end, even though I was let down by the ending.

I had high hopes for The Villa but it didn't have the effect on me that I expect from Thriller novels, the lack of twists and overall slow pace is largely what contributed to that. I would say this is more mystery and suspense than thriller, the Gothic elements and the idea that the house holds memories is fascinating. While this is a story of questionable friendship, toxic relationships and how far resentment can push a person, the many plot holes and disappointing ending just didn't work for me. If you are a fan of Rachel Hawkins past work, you may or may not enjoy The Villa, I truly think it's up to personal preference, as I'm rather conflicted on this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and St.Martin's Press for providing me with an Advanced Copy of The Villa. All thoughts are my own.