The Villa by Rachel Hawkins

The Villa by Rachel Hawkins

Read by Julia Whelan, Kimberly M. Wetherell, Shiromi Arserio

7 hours, 57 minutes

Published January 2023 by St. Martin's Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

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.

As Emily digs into the villa's complicated history, she begins to think there might be more to the story of that fateful summer in 1974. That perhaps Pierce's murder wasn't just a tale of sex, drugs, and rock & roll gone wrong, but that something more sinister might have occurred--and that there might be clues hidden in the now-iconic works that Mari and Lara left behind.

Yet the closer that Emily gets to the truth, the more tension she feels developing between her and Chess. As secrets from the past come to light, equally dangerous betrayals from the present also emerge--and it begins to look like the villa will claim another victim before the summer ends.

My Thoughts: 

Chess is a highly successful self-help guru. Emily is a less successful cozy mystery series writer going through a bitter divorce and far behind the deadline to submit the latest book in the series. When Chess suggests Emily join her in Italy and they can both spend time writing, Emily agrees. And that's about the last time the two seem to really enjoy each other. 

After they arrive, Emily is just not inspired to return to her Petal Blossom character (and who can blame her - what a ridiculous name - even for a cozy mystery series). Instead, she begins reading Lilith Rising, the only published novel by Mari Godwick which became one of the greatest horror novels of all time, a novel Godwick wrote the summer she spent at Villa Rosato and reading the lyrics of Mari's sister Lara's uber famous novel, Aestas. Soon she's obsessed with uncovered the secrets in those works and in the villa itself. And that's when things become very tense between Chess and Emily. 

Between Chess' and Emily's chapters, the story of what happened in 1974 is revealed through Mari Godwick's eyes. That storyline overshadows the contemporary one, in no small part because the reader is playing a game of "I see what you did there" with Hawkins. Mari Godwick = Mary Godwin Shelley; Pierce Sheldon = Percy Shelley; Noel Gordon = George Gordon, Lord Byron; Mari's step sister Lara = Mary's step sister, Clair. Lilith Rising, created on a stormy night = Frankenstein (although with a twist); Aestas = Tapestry (ok that one doesn't link back to the Romantics, but still). 

What's good here? 

• Playing "I see what you did there," although I'd far preferred that Hawkins let the reader figure out the connections without stating them outright. 
• The twists that I was expecting from Hawkins that which she delivered. 
• The readers are great (but I expected that as soon as I saw Julia Whelan was one of the readers). 

Where it fell short for me?

• The relationship between Chess and Emily, even before the reveal that I can't tell you about. 
• That reveal about Chess and Emily's reaction to it. Not believable to me at all.   
• Although Hawkins' use of multiple narrators in The Heiress was one of my favorite things about that novel, in this book the dual storylines (interspersed with passages from Lilith Rising) didn't work as well for me because it felt uneven. 

Reviews are mixed on this one - some readers and reviewers really love it, others felt it could have been better. I fall in that latter category, but that doesn't mean it wasn't worth reading - there was plenty to enjoy.